NASCAR officials announced Tuesday that Homestead-Miami Speedway will return as the host of season finales for all three national series in 2026 as schedule organizers chart a path toward a rotation model for Championship Weekend.
The 1.5-mile South Florida track — which played host to season-ending events for the Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Craftsman Truck Series from 2002-2019 — is scheduled to hold its tripleheader weekend on Nov. 6-8 next season. Competition officials indicated the rest of the 2026 NASCAR schedule would be released later this summer.
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The announcement means Championship Weekend will shift from Phoenix Raceway, which has been the host of season finales for those three series every year since 2020 and will again host those events Oct. 31-Nov. 2.
“This has been a while coming,” said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Venue & Racing Innovation Officer. “It’s been since 2019 since we’ve had the championship race at Homestead. We moved it out to Phoenix for the past several years, which has been great for us. It’s been an amazing market. We’ve seen some great racing there, and we’ve crowned some of our biggest champions, but we’re excited to go to Homestead-Miami Speedway. I can tell you from a few people that I’ve talked to so far across the industry, through our partners, they’re over the moon about it. And from our fans, it’s the No. 1 asked-about championship venue as well. So we’re excited to finally get the news out there.”
Homestead-Miami is celebrating its 30th season this year. The venue first hosted the NASCAR championship in 2002, when Tony Stewart became Cup Series champ for the first time. Stewart won all three of his Cup crowns there, including his historic 2011 title march that he capped in a tiebreaker with fellow Hall of Famer Carl Edwards. Homestead was also the site for all of Jimmie Johnson’s record-tying seven Cup Series championships, as well as the first premier-series titles for Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and others.
The intermediate-sized track has also long been lauded as a true test of driver skill, with a well-worn surface and progressive banking that produces multiple racing grooves. That sense of history and the quality of the competition — borne out by recent thrilling finishes there and multiple performance metrics to support it — helped to inform the scheduling decision.
“I think it’s really a racer’s race track,” said Kennedy, who made five national-series starts there in his driving days. “… I think the beauty of it is its age now. The asphalt continues to wear every single year it bakes in the sun. There’s a ton of sand, and it’s really turned it into this multi-groove race track. You see drivers will start in the bottom, they migrate to the middle, some of them will go to the top, so I think it’s going to put on some really exciting finishes for our championship and I think it’s going to be fun to see the drivers’ reaction from it, too.”
The reaction has been a welcoming one from Homestead-Miami track president Guillermo Santa Cruz, who was named to that role last July. It’s been a whirlwind 10 months for the newly appointed executive, who grew up in South Florida. Since taking the job, he’s hosted a pair of NASCAR race weekends and now has a championship event in next year’s on-deck circle.
He might be relatively new to the trackside experience, but Santa Cruz has relished the intense competition his facility has hosted in recent years.
“The kind of racing that this track puts on, we talk about it all the time,” Santa Cruz said. “Here in Homestead, the track is the star, and that’s something that we lean into in our messaging, but also it comes from the drivers. They’re the ones who tell us that, and they’re the ones who really go on about how much they enjoy the racing here. In my 10 months here, as I’ve traveled around the country, I’ve met drivers, people in the industry, crew chiefs, spotters, things like that, and I hear it regularly — love Homestead, love the track, and it’s because of the kind of racing that we put on, and that makes a big difference.
“You know, certainly there are many factors in determining where the championship goes — location, weather, all that goes into that. But certainly, the kind of racing that we put on, the kind of racing that takes place here is unique, and it’s top-level.”
Phoenix will continue to host two Cup Series events next year, and the autumn race scheduled for the 1-mile Arizona oval will remain in the 2026 NASCAR Playoffs with a prominent spot in the Round of 8. Exact dates will come later, but officials also confirmed Phoenix will remain in the rotation of tracks under consideration for future championship weekends.
The Phoenix-area track underwent a $178 million renovation project ahead of the 2018 season, with expanded grandstands, a new layout and enhanced fan amenities. But the raceway has also been a marketing machine when it comes to promotion — first with track president Julie Giese and then her successor, Latasha Causey — and creating the big-event feel befitting a major league championship weekend.
That’s why, Kennedy said, Phoenix’s place in the title-race rotation is secured.
“Every time I’ve gone to Phoenix over the past few years that we’ve had our championship race there, Julie and then Latasha have built such strong relationships with the city and a lot of local community leaders to have this race transcend the Phoenix market in a different way,” Kennedy said. “If you go into that market, whether it’s the local activations, the promotion that you see in and around the Phoenix area and out toward the track, it’s really unparalleled to what we’ve seen in the past. So it’s been great, and for that, we wanted to continue to have them in the playoffs, later on in the playoffs and in that Round of 8.”
There hasn’t been a price tag announced, but Homestead-Miami is due for improvements before its return to the championship rotation, all with the goal of creating a big-ticket atmosphere. Kennedy said he anticipated work to start this fall and into next year, but that “the great part about it is, the bones of Homestead are really strong.”
Santa Cruz says a new coat of paint is among the priorities for the track, which hosted its first NASCAR events in 1995, but further upgrades are planned for hospitality suites and other fan conveniences.
“So it’s a fair-sized list of things that we need to do,” Santa Cruz said. “Luckily, we have time to address many of them, and we’re excited to do that, and we look forward to working with our design and development team to address these things. But I’m sure that by the time that green flag drops in November 2026, this jewel is going to be sparkling.”
Santa Cruz said city and community leaders in the Homestead and greater Miami area have been willing partners in building momentum for the return of NASCAR’s season finales. He experienced that spirit of collaboration first-hand this spring, when wildfires in the vicinity posed a threat to the track’s weekend schedule. Santa Cruz said first responders took control of the situation, providing assurances the event would take place as planned.
“That’s one example, a very concrete example, of how we’ve communicated and worked together,” Santa Cruz said, “and there’s lots of things that we’re doing and that we’re going to do to make sure that Homestead shines when the championship comes.”
Though it’s a reunion of sorts for a track rich in NASCAR championship nostalgia, for Santa Cruz, Tuesday’s news also represents a glimpse into the future.
“So knowing what came here before, knowing the history, knowing the significance of holding a championship, yes, it’s a homecoming and it’s a return, but at the same time it’s a springboard. It’s the start of something new, of the championship rotation, of approaching the championship with a fresh set of eyes,” Santa Cruz said. “The last time it was here in 2019 was a long time ago. When you think of all that’s transpired since then, COVID and all that happened after, and Miami has changed a lot. So, yes, it’s a homecoming, but at the same time, it’s been some time, so it’s exciting, right? There’s new things we’ll be doing, and there’s new ways of looking at putting on a championship race.”