Eager to get back into the lucrative Southern California market, NASCAR is considering staging a Cup Series street race in the San Diego area as soon as next season.
While no commitment has been reached, San Diego appears to be one of five or six sites vying for dates on next year’s schedule, which is expected to be finalized next month and announced in August. NASCAR has been looking at possible sites in downtown San Diego, Coronado and one other spot in San Diego County.
“Schedule negotiations are one of the best-kept secrets in NASCAR,” a source told the San Diego Union-Tribune last week. “There is always speculation at this time of year as to where NASCAR is going. But no one knows.”
NASCAR has scouted the San Diego area for potential street courses and is working with Sports San Diego — the organization that produces the Holiday Bowl and Rady Children’s Hospital Basketball Invitational and backs sports tourism in the San Diego area. Sports San Diego did not respond to inquiries.
Southern California hasn’t hosted a regular-season NASCAR race since 2023, when Auto Club Speedway closed. Plans to rebuild that track as a half-mile oval have stalled.
In 2023-24, NASCAR held its preseason Busch Clash all-star race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But that race has been moved to Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“NASCAR sees San Diego as it does Las Vegas,” said the source, “a destination-style venue, which makes it even more attractive than some other potential sites.”
However, San Diego also faces a number of obstacles — starting with finding a spot on an already packed schedule. NASCAR’s premier series runs from February through the first weekend of November.
This year’s schedule includes a street race in Chicago and the recently run inaugural road race in Mexico City. Both sites are seeking extensions to hold races beyond this year. There is also talk that if the Chicago street race contract isn’t extended, NASCAR could return to the nearby oval at Chicagoland Speedway.
Earlier this year, NASCAR said it wanted to explore “new and unique” street courses given the success at Chicago. Although the first two Chicago events were plagued by rain, the economic impact of each event was estimated at more than $200 million.
NASCAR was very happy with the inaugural Mexico City race, although the logistics and travel issues made it a difficult venue for teams.
Montreal, Philadelphia and Denver have also expressed interest in hosting a NASCAR street race. Montreal’s proposal has backing from the Canadian government. The Philadelphia proposal, which has the historic Franklin Field as its focal point, is tied to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Speedway losing one of its two traditional NASCAR races.
Were NASCAR to renew its contracts with both Chicago and Mexico City, there might not be an opening on the 2026 schedule unless NASCAR expands its schedule deeper into November. Adding a 39th and 40th date has been discussed before, but has met resistance from teams due to the already short off-season. NASCAR has raced as late as Nov. 20 in the past.
There has also been discussions to revise the playoff format at the end of the season and add a race to the regular season.
NASCAR has tight control of its race sites and schedule. Were the San Diego area to be granted a street race, it likely would appear early on the schedule where the Auto Club Speedway date used to be (late February or early March).
This is not the first time a car race has been proposed for downtown San Diego. In 1992, Long Beach Grand Prix founder Chris Pook wanted to move his IMSA sports car race to downtown San Diego after staging it for six years at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. But every course plotted by Pook ran into problems due to crossing railroad tracks and government regulations and restrictions.
IndyCar briefly looked at San Diego earlier this century with a course using Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway. But the tracks and train traffic proved to be an insurmountable barrier.
Coronado hosted the Coronado Speed Festival vintage car races from 1997 to 2015 at the North Island Naval Air Station as part of Fleet Week. But the Navy placed restrictions on what attendees could bring onto the base.