With Chicago on hold, NASCAR announced Wednesday that it is headed to San Diego next summer to host a new street race weekend on an active naval base.
The three-day event, dubbed the NASCAR San Diego Weekend, will take place in June 2026, filling the void on the schedule left by the Chicago Street Race, which last week was paused after three years.
The San Diego street race will feature a very different and likely less disruptive setting, trading Grant Park for Naval Base Coronado, Lake Michigan for San Diego Bay and bus routes for runways.
“It’ll be a blend of traditional street racing in a way where we’ll be winding our ways through some of the streets on the base,” Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s executive vice president, said in a news release. “They’ll be going past (aircraft) carriers. They’ll eventually go out onto the tarmac, probably by some military aircraft, maybe a couple of F-18s out there, and then back toward the entrance to the base.”
The NASCAR San Diego Weekend, set for June 19 to June 21, will include Xfinity and Cup Series events, adding a Craftsman Truck Series race to the opening day lineup. The street race weekend coincides with the 250th anniversary of the United States Navy.
The agreement to hold the San Diego street race is a one-year deal, NASCAR confirmed Wednesday. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“This is a huge win for San Diego and we are so grateful to NASCAR for their partnership,” Mark Neville, CEO of Sports San Diego, said in the release. “Without a doubt, the NASCAR San Diego Weekend will have a significant and favorable impact on San Diego’s tourism and hospitality industry.”
Last year, the Chicago Street Race generated $128 million in total economic impact and drew 53,036 unique visitors, according to a study commissioned by Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism arm. The nationally televised Cup Series race also generated $43.6 million in media value for Chicago, according to a companion report.
While attendance figures for the third annual Fourth of July weekend run through Grant Park have yet to be released, TV ratings for the Cup Series race on July 6 were down for the third consecutive year, averaging 2.1 million viewers on cable channel TNT, according to Nielsen. The Xfinity race on July 5 averaged 1.1 million viewers on its new TV home, the CW broadcast network, according to Nielsen.
NASCAR sent a notice last week to Mayor Brandon Johnson putting the Chicago Street Race on hold for 2026, but leaving open the door to return on a different date the following year.
NASCAR said it paused the Chicago Street Race because it needs more time to explore rescheduling the event away from Independence Day and finding ways to speed up the build-out and breakdown of the pop-up racecourse, in response to concerns from the city.
The three-year deal with NASCAR to host the street race was struck during former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration and included a two-year renewal option.
NASCAR said in the release that it will build on its experiences with the first street race in Chicago and apply it to San Diego, including “how to load into and out of a city efficiently.”
While the details of the temporary San Diego racecourse have yet to be finalized, it will certainly look different than the 12-turn, 2.2-mile circuit through Grant Park, down DuSable Lake Shore Drive and up Michigan Avenue, which has popped up in Chicago over the last three summers.
“We’re not going to be on city grounds,” Kennedy said. “We’re going to be working with different partners in this area and I think in ways, it will be a little bit more simple, and then in other areas we’ll just have to be mindful of schedules and how they coordinate people on and off the base.”
Chicago hosted the first street race in NASCAR’s 75-year history. San Diego will be the second street race, and the first held on an active military base.
The San Diego street race will also mark NASCAR’s first return to Southern California since February 2024, when it last held the Clash at the LA Coliseum. Before that, NASCAR raced at Fontana Speedway, a traditional oval track east of Los Angeles, for 26 years.
Whether NASCAR returns to Chicago remains to be seen. But NASCAR is maintaining its Chicago office and reiterated Wednesday it hopes to be racing again on the streets of Chicago down the road.
“We hope to still return in 2027,” a NASCAR spokesperson said.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
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