NASCAR’s Ben Kennedy shoots down Daytona, road courses as potential championship venue

NASCAR Championship Weekend is returning to Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2026. Moving forward, the site of the title-deciding race will rotate, with the venue hosting this season’s finale, Phoenix Raceway, part of the conversation, as well.

While tracks like Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway have been floated as potential options, some thought perhaps Daytona International Raceway could be interesting. However, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Venue & Racing Innovations Officer Ben Kennedy shot the idea down, along with other superspeedways or road courses.

According to Kennedy via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, Daytona won’t be in the rotation, and neither will superspeedways or road courses as a whole. NASCAR will stick to their more traditional venues to decide their champion: “We’ve unanimously agreed it needs to look and feel what we’d expect traditional NASCAR racing to look and feel like,” the NASCAR executive stated.

That makes a ton of sense, as cool as it would be to see Daytona bookend the NASCAR season. There’s simply too much unpredictability at superspeedways and road courses, and the playoff format for the sport already is under enough scrutiny as it stands.

While Daytona and other similar tracks may not be included in it, a championship rotation is what NASCAR fans have been clamoring for over the past couple of years. It’ll certainly be a much needed shot in the arm for the Cup Series playoffs moving forward, and fans are already looking forward to returning the trophy-deciding race to Homestead in 2026.

More on NASCAR Championship Weekend, Homestead-Miami Speedway

Meanwhile, Homestead hosted Championship Weekend from 2002-19. Phoenix Raceway has been the site for the last five Championship races and will be once again this November. But there had been a renewed push to see NASCAR take its Championship back to Homestead.

The 1.5-mile Homestead is lauded as one of the more entertaining tracks on the schedule. The Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series title races will occur Nov. 6-8, 2026.

“We talked about it for quite a while. But we felt this was the right opportunity, the right time to do it,” Kennedy told Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic. “We have a great new president down there with [Homestead track president] Guillermo [Santa Cruz] taking the lead; [the track] has put on some amazing races, and this was a big opportunity for us to shake things up.”

Beyond 2026, the Championship race will rotate tracks from year to year. Phoenix will be included in the rotation. The one-mile oval’s annual date will stay in the playoffs and is set for a spot in the semifinal round next season, per Bianchi.

— On3’s Nick Geddes contributed to this article.