The 2027 schedule for NASCAR’s three national series came into full view Wednesday, with the remaining dates on a variety-packed list now set for next year’s racing calendar.
A steady, track-by-track flow of announcements this month helped connect the dots for a host of returning favorites, strategic date shifts and a new-look Chase postseason slate. The full schedule arrives just days before this year’s regular-season finales for both the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.
“I would say, you know, first and foremost, certainly a lot of work as we announce a schedule each year that goes in collaboration with the entire industry, whether it’s broadcast partners, race teams, drivers, gathering a lot of information from our fans and helping us develop the schedule,” said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR Chief Operating Officer. “And it’s an iterative process, because as we’ve shared in the past, we’ve made decisions that haven’t always panned out. We’ve also made other decisions that have been huge successes for the schedule, and this is the next step and the next iteration of it. So, a handful of big changes, but certainly proud of the work that’s gone into the schedule.”
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Seven tracks heralded their return to the schedule Wednesday: Charlotte Motor Speedway (May 28-30 for Coca-Cola 600 weekend, plus Oct. 15-17 in The Chase), Nashville Superspeedway (June 4-6), Michigan International Speedway (June 19-20), Lime Rock Park (July 10), Sonoma Raceway (July 10-11), Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (July 23) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (July 24-25). Additionally, Watkins Glen International firmed up its dates — Sept. 17-19 — after previously announcing a return to The Chase rotation.
The schedule was the result of wide collaboration and team effort, but Kennedy noted the leadership of Julie Giese throughout the last year in her role as NASCAR Vice President, Market Development & Strategic Scheduling. Giese’s experience as a track president who helped revitalize Phoenix Raceway and brought the Chicago Street Race to life during its three-year run helped sharpen her guidance when it came to shaping an interlocking schedule with nearly 100 races across three national series.
“I think it’s honestly been a really fun experience for me, and I mean, I’ve been with this company for 26 years and I’ve learned so much about our sport and our industry in the last year, honestly, than I have in my other roles,” Giese said. “It’s been really good to see a different part of our sport and how the schedule comes together, and to Ben’s point, all the stakeholders that come together to be part of this, whether it’s our race teams to the different tracks, to our independent track partners, the broadcast partners, but there’s so many different stakeholders and it’s been really fun to learn how the schedule impacts them and how it drives their decisions.”
The most recent significant piece to the 2027 puzzle came Tuesday with the announcement that NASCAR will return to San Diego for an encore at Naval Base Coronado. The first edition this past June marked the first time the circuit had competed on an active military base, and the temporary 3.4-mile street course provided striking views along the San Diego Bay, including a drive past the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier at trackside.
This year’s announcement includes the news of an agreement with the potential to rotate the event to other military installations in 2028 and beyond, but first comes an opportunity to enhance the showcase race in Year 2.
“This year was the first of its kind,” Kennedy said. “We’ve never had a race on a military installation before, so a lot of learnings, but also a huge success in the summer months for us to be able to go to a military base on the 250th anniversary of the country and the Navy and put on what we thought were three really compelling races across the race weekend and have a lot of active military members join us on Friday as well for Military Day.”
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Another return to the 2027 schedule is the next phase of a revival from earlier this season, when Chicagoland Speedway returned to the racing calendar after a seven-year break. The 1.5-mile track’s rebirth reaffirmed the sport’s place in the Midwest, traveling an hour south of the Windy City after three years of the Chicago Street Race.
“I think when you look at Chicagoland this year after not racing there since 2019, the weekend itself, I think it’s all safe to say it exceeded its expectations,” Giese said. “I mean, a sellout crowd, the racing was absolutely phenomenal, and just a lot of enthusiasm and energy for that event, and I think the thing that we learned was the fact that when you look at who was attending the Chicago Street Race the past three years versus who attended Chicagoland Speedway, it was quite a different crowd, and so if anything, it showed us that this market can accommodate two different races if needed. So I think as we were looking at the schedule, knowing the success that Chicagoland Speedway had, making sure that that was going to be on the schedule moving forward.”
Giese said Chicagoland’s placement back on the 2027 schedule doesn’t necessarily spell the end of the Chicago street-circuit race. The downtown event experienced a wide range of developments — a festival atmosphere, a new group of attendees and weather challenges — during its three-year run, and she said that talks continue about potentially renewing it in the future.
“We’re going to continue the conversations, and will say we really just ran out of time to be able to get something done, knowing we needed to get our schedule out,” said Giese, who maintains a Chicago office. “We have great relationships with the city of Chicago, whether it’s the mayor’s office, city council, as well as all the different stakeholders and organizations that I think would like to see NASCAR back in downtown, but there’s obviously a lot of things that have to come together for that to occur. So we’ll continue the conversation, see where that leads us in the future.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway — another intermediate-sized track — will cap the 2027 season, a schedule slot that it will also occupy this year for the first time since 2019. The South Florida venue is in the midst of a revitalization project, one that Kennedy says he’s received regular updates about the progress, including demolition, fresh paint and a reimagined entrance.
“It’s just going to feel like a new facility,” Kennedy said, “and we agreed as we were looking at a lot of line items, it’s not the most fun thing to do, but anytime you repaint a new house or a new building, or as we’ve seen some other race tracks, it feels like a newer facility. So it’ll be a fresh coat of paint on it, and renovations are currently underway. The focus on the main entryway to Homestead-Miami Speedway, if any fans have attended there before, you know how confusing it is to find the main entrance to the track and how it’s buried a bit. Frankly, the midway and activation areas were a bit daunting to also navigate as well, so we’re going to blow all of that out. We’re going to have a much larger midway space as fans walk in, a main entry gate.
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“If people have been to other entry gates like at Daytona or Phoenix, we’ll have a similar vibe and atmosphere to that, and then also working on improving a lot of our suites and hospitality areas, which are quite dated as well, so excited about the project. It’s been a pretty large one, investing roughly $20 million that will go into it, and everything — knock on wood — is on track to have it unveiled before championship weekend.”
While Homestead-Miami will end the season, another longtime Florida venue will kick it off. The preseason Wheatley Vodka Clash goes back to its roots at Daytona International Speedway in 2027 for a Saturday night exhibition Feb. 13.
The Clash has rotated in recent years since it was last held at Daytona — on the 2.5-mile oval in 2020 and then on the oval/road-course configuration in 2021. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum served as Clash host from 2022-24 before the event shifted to Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the last two editions.
Those experiences, Giese said, helped spark the conversation about what The Clash could look like in the future, but also re-established a traditional kickoff to Speedweeks and the lead-up to the annual Daytona 500.
“I think we’ve heard that from fans as well, where let’s bring it back to Daytona, and that’s something that we really want to make sure we’re continuing to be responsive to,” Giese said. “Being able to take it back to Daytona and build out that Speedweeks schedule, kind of creates some of that. It’s also always an opportunity, too, with The Clash where you can again you can think a bit outside the box. That’s what we did at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, and then throw it back with Bowman Gray, and now essentially throwing it back again to Daytona International Speedway, where it’s been for many, many years should be a really great way to kick off Speedweeks.”
Shifting The Clash also means a move away from Bowman Gray, the historic quarter-mile track that hosts the longest-running weekly racing promotion under NASCAR sanction. Kennedy, who won there during his racing days in what is now called the ARCA Menards Series East, called the stadium special to the sport and his family for “a long list of reasons” and stressed the importance of keeping it on the national series schedule.
Enter the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, which will make its Bowman Gray debut next August, coinciding with the end of the racing season for the four divisions that regularly compete at the track known as “The Madhouse.”
“Having the opportunities to be stewards of Bowman Gray and take it to the next generation, we were able to do that through The Clash for the past couple of years,” Kennedy said. “Fans got to see some improvements that we made, and we were all very clear as we approached the Bowman Gray project, there’s so much history and tradition and elements that just make Bowman Gray unique and special that we want to keep intact. I think we’ve been able to do that while also making changes and improvements to it. So whether it’s a new lighting system we put in place, the SAFER walls and catchfence, repaving the track, things like that have certainly continued to enhance a race experience. So we’re excited to go back with the Craftsman Truck Series and bring another national-series event there in the future.”
The addition of Bowman Gray makes the Truck Series slate one of NASCAR’s most varied. The tour will return to the streets of St. Petersburg for its second edition on March 6, and Lime Rock Park will mark its third appearance on the schedule with a July 10 show, all before a regular-season finale on Sept. 5, when Canadian Tire Motorsport Park returns for the first time since 2019.
Giese said the return of the history-steeped road course outside of Toronto was a popular request, based on input throughout the industry. She said she recently attended an IMSA weekend in front of a packed house at CTMP, and she emphasized the need for an international NASCAR national-tour event after a year without.
“That’s certainly a priority for us across any of our national series,” Giese said. “We’ve had a really good, long-standing relationship with the team at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. They have some new ownership as well that has been very eager to continue conversations, and so it’s a conversation we’ve been having over the last year that really allowed us to solidify an opportunity.
“Looking ahead to 2027, I’ll say I’m really excited about where it falls on the schedule. Obviously, that Labor Day weekend is historically its traditional weekend when we raced there previously, but it’s also the last race before the start of The Chase for the Truck Series, so we know the exciting races that CTMP has put on in the past. There’s been some drama, there’s been some excitement, so I think putting it there in the schedule really just puts a light on that even more.”