The NASCAR Cup Series goes to a new venue for a fifth consecutive season. The championship race changes tracks next year. How the series crowns its champion also could be different in 2026.
In a sport whose competitors can travel nearly 200 mph, what is happening off track can be dizzying to some — or seemingly slow to others.
Either way, it’s not stagnant.
“I think it’s always changing and always evolving,” former Cup champion Chase Elliott said of the sport. “I don’t think that’s ever going to stop. There has been a lot of it … over the last three or four years. I don’t think that will ever change, but I do think that they’re in search of a better balance right now between all their different track configurations and rightfully so, because I think it can be better.
“No reason why we can’t take all the knowledge that we’ve learned for the 75-plus years that it’s been around and have it the best today than it has ever been.”
Ross Chastain won last fall’s playoff race at Kansas Speedway and has scored five top 10s in the last seven races this season.
Not all concepts prove fruitful, though.
NASCAR floated the idea to teams about relaxing some rules for this month’s All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway to give them more creativity with car setups. Teams declined for various reasons.
Series officials continue to examine at what can be done with the racing at short tracks with this car, which debuted in 2022. Goodyear continues to change tire compounds. Competitors and fans also want to see changes with superspeedway racing. For some, change can’t come soon enough.
“The thing is about everyone’s opinion is that you have to understand the full picture of one, how you got there, and two, why things aren’t so simple to change,” three-time Cup champion Joey Logano said.
“There’s a lot of positives that go on that we don’t talk about. There’s a lot of negatives that we talk about because people like that. With that same attitude, complacency is also one of the worst things you can ever have in your life.
“So you got to look at it and say, “OK, what can we make better?’ Because you can always improve something.”
Homestead and Phoenix will be among the tracks to rotate hosting the Cup season finale and there could be a few other tracks to do so.
Next month’s race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City continues NASCAR’s international push. The race will mark the first time since 1958 that the Cup Series has had a points race outside the United States.
“With Mexico, that will be a new experience,” Noah Gragson said. “It will be something that’s really cool and something that’s different for NASCAR.”
Since 2021, new tracks on the Cup schedule include Circuit of the Americas (2021 debut), Nashville (2021), World Wide Technology Raceway (2022), Chicago Street Race (2023), Iowa (2024) and the Mexico City event.
“I think schedule variation works, and it’s proven that it works,” NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps said last November at Phoenix. “It works from an attendance standpoint. It works from a ratings standpoint. Not insignificantly it works from kind of a brand standpoint, what it means to be bold and innovative and do things differently and change things up. That drives success.
“I think that’s what we’ve tried to do as a sport is do those things. And not just schedule innovation, but other things as well.”
NASCAR will begin rotating sites for the championship race in 2026.
NASCAR has a group looking at what changes, if any, to make with how the champion is crowned. Such changes could be instituted after this season.
“You’re talking to a guy that thinks we have a great system,” said Logano, who is among the drivers on the group. “I would make minimal changes, if any.
“There’s different opinions, right? All of us will have different ones, probably depending on where you’re sitting. I try to look the at it and ask what do I think is most entertaining?”
Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president, chief venue & racing innovation officer, said this week that the group is not expected to announce any decision for a few months.
NASCAR revealed this week that the championship race for Cup, Xfinity and the Craftsman Truck Series will move from Phoenix to Homestead-Miami Speedway for 2026. That will begin a rotation of tracks for the title event. Kennedy did not say what other tracks would be a part of the rotation other than Phoenix and Homestead.
Josh Berry, who is set to make the Cup playoffs for the first time with his Las Vegas win, has a track in mind for the championship rotation.
“I think the first one that comes to mind is Las Vegas, not only because of us winning there, but it just seems to put on good racing and I think it’s a good market for the championship race as well,” he said. “I think that checks those two boxes there. It’s a really good racetrack, but a really good area that could bring some excitement for the championship race.”
Series officials are still looking at the concept of moving the season-opening exhibition race somewhere outside the U.S. in the future.
Kennedy said that Daytona won’t be among those tracks because officials “unanimously agreed that (the finale) needs to look and feel like what we would expect traditional NASCAR racing to look and feel like. Short tracks, intermediate tracks, mile tracks are all on the board. Superspeedways, I think we all feel like right now we wouldn’t consider that as a championship venue, not that Daytona isn’t a championship caliber venue.”
But Daytona will remain the season opener. The Clash, though, will likely move to different venues and Kennedy has said an international venue could be in the event’s future but not next year.
“I wouldn’t ever rule out international in the future, though,” Kennedy said. “We have thoughts about a lot of it being prior to the season, in the off-season, an exhibition race. It’s a great opportunity for us to bring NASCAR racing to other parts of the world.”
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