Homestead-Miami to host 2026 finale as NASCAR announces rotation system

NASCAR has announced that Homestead-Miami will retake its spot as the championship decider in 2026 as part of a planned rotation system.

The 1.5-mile Florida track will host the final round of the 2026 season on 6-8 November after being moved from its existing slot in March. The change will apply to all three national series hosted by NASCAR, including the Cup Series.

Homestead-Miami staged the final round of every NASCAR season from 2002-19 and has remained a popular venue among fans even after being removed from the playoffs.

Phoenix, which took over the honour of hosting the Championship Race in 2020, will continue to host two races next year. Although the exact dates haven’t been revealed, NASCAR said the autumn race will occupy a prominent spot in the Round of 8.

“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.”

NASCAR stated that a new rotation system will kick in next year, with the venue for the title-decider to be shifted between a handful of tracks.

Miami and Phoenix have already been selected under the new rotation system, with more tracks set to be announced at a later date.

The championship said the other circuits that are being considered come from a mix of ownership groups, including Speedway Motorsports and NASCAR itself.

“If you’ve watched a lot of other sports properties that are moving the location around year after year, part of that is to build up pent-up demand,” said Kennedy.

“But part of it is that variability in a lot of the markets, and then a little bit of it is what we talked about as well is just having a little bit of differentiation as it relates to the competition and racing product as well. 

"Having the playoffs be more unpredictable every year, the championship venue to be at a different location, I think gives you the ability to see different teams and drivers kind of rise to the occasion to be able to be crowned a champion.”

Explaining what will determine a track is suitable for the final round, he added: “I would say it’s four or five things.

“It’s marketing and promotion, for sure, and it’s location. We want to be in a warm-weather market. Ideally, being in November, that first week of November, it kind of limits you to the amount of races that you can run.

“I would say the quality of the facility. In Phoenix, we put over $100 million into the redevelopment of that track, and it was a big catalyst for bringing this championship to the West Coast. We’re going to be putting a good amount of capital into Homestead as well ahead of the race.

“The racing product, I think, is another big part of this. And then overall, it’s just the entire industry’s feedback on this. So we collaborate with our broadcast partners, our teams. We hear from our drivers what they think, a lot of our corporate partners, and then ultimately the fans, and the fans have a large voice in this, and we get their perspective on it every single year.”