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NASCAR exec Ben Kennedy confirms Daytona 500 will remain as season-opener

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones05/06/25brianjones_93
Daytona 500 (1)
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

As NASCAR makes big changes to the 2026 schedule, the Daytona 500 isn’t going anywhere. Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president, chief venue and racing innovations officer, spoke to reporters on Tuesday and said that NASCAR is not exploring moving the Daytona 500 from its position as the season-opener. Kennedy said that a fan survey was done a couple of years ago and revealed that 95 percent of fans wanted Daytona as the first points-paying race.

This comes as NASCAR announced that Homestead-Miami Speedway will host the championship races for the three national series in 2026. Kennedy also said that Daytona International Speedway would not be part of the rotation of tracks for championship weekend.

“We’ve unanimously agreed it needs to look and feel what we’d expect traditional NASCAR racing to look and feel like,” Kennedy said, per Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. The Daytona 500 is NASCAR’s biggest race, so it makes sense for it to open the season. It has been the opening race since 1982.

Why the Daytona 500 is so important for the drivers

William Byron won this year’s Daytona 500 and also won it in 2024. He became the 13th driver in NASCAR history to win the Daytona 500 multiple times. The only other active full-time driver to win multiple Daytona 500s is Denny Hamlin, who has won it three times.

Before this year’s Daytona 500, Hamlin talked about the importance of the race. “I try to tell people that we try so hard when we are kids, we are trying to get to the highest form of motorsports, but to win its biggest race is one of the things that we aspire to do,” Hamlin told reporters during the Daytona 500 media day.

“To have done it three times is certainly special. If any of you have the question on what will the fourth mean, I can’t answer that. I tried to figure out what it would mean to win one, and I didn’t have any idea until I won one, and I didn’t have any idea, until after I won two, what two meant. It is all really, really hard to put into words – but the attention when you come back, you are in an elite class of drivers that have won this multiple times. It is just one of those things that stays on your resume forever.”