"We listen to our fans": Ben Kennedy sheds light on NASCAR bringing back Homestead Miami as a championship venue

Ben Kennedy shared how Homestead Miami landed the NASCAR championship race for 2026. During a press interaction, the Executive Vice President and Chief Venue & Racing Innovations Officer for NASCAR spoke about all the factors that came into play with this decision.

It's worth mentioning that in 2019, Phoenix Raceway was announced to be taking over the championship race, a spot it would hold until the end of this season.

When asked about the different factors that led to the race being shifted from Phoenix to Miami, the NASCAR senior executive said:

"I say first and foremost, it's fan feedback. Fans ranked Homestead Miami Speedway as number one on the list of where they would like to see a championship in the future. And from what you guys may have seen and some of the fan sentiment so far, it leans very positive, which is great to see.

"So we listen to our fans. All of our partners, broadcast partners, our teams, our drivers have input into where they'd like to see the championship in the future. So, a lot of industry stakeholders that we'll collaborate with."

Kennedy then pointed out the factor of weather, as the climate of the championship has to be warm in the month of November. This is why he said they had 'a handful of venues' towards which NASCAR gravitated.

Kennedy also touched on the aspect of marketing and promoting such a big event in the right way, citing Phoenix as 'a great example' for the same. While he touched on putting a hundred million dollars into reimagining Phoenix, the NASCAR executive clarified that Miami isn't the same and won't be at the same level in 2026.

Having said that, Kennedy remarked that NASCAR would put some capital into the facility to make it championship caliber. Lastly, he claimed that the aspect of a good racing product was a factor, as he described:

"We have a lot of confidence that when we go to Homestead Miami Speedway, it's going to deliver from a racing product perspective. It's also going to create a good amount of unpredictability for many of our fans that come to that race or tune in on TV."

In the end, Ben Kennedy wrapped up his thoughts, claiming that a lot of collaboration internally with their partners, birthed the Homestead comeback. The NACSAR executive added that they were 'sitting on' this release for a while, and now that it's officially announced, he was glad.

Ben Kennedy comments on whether NASCAR intends to bring back Phoenix as a championship race venue

Despite NASCAR announcing that the championship race would be taken away from Phoenix, Ben Kennedy revealed that the big event would come back to the city in the future. He deemed Phoenix as 'a beautiful track' and 'a beautiful facility.'

Kennedy spoke about how Phoenix embraces NASCAR, and on the other side, NASCAR also does 'a good job' with events and activations around the Phoenix market area.

"It is a championship caliber market. It's championship caliber city and we'll be bringing the championship back to Phoenix sometime in the future," Ben Kennedy claimed.

Kennedy further added that NASCAR intends to give Homestead Miami a similar treatment, where they want to partner up with the city and county to turn it into 'a longer weekend.'

Kennedy added that NASCAR intends to 'really paint the town' so anyone in Miami that weekend would know about the championship race.