NASCAR championship weekend returning to Phoenix in 2025
The NASCAR championship weekend will return to Phoenix in 2025, but how much longer will it continue to be there?
NASCAR announced Thursday that the season finale will be at Phoenix Raceway, a 1-mile oval about 30 minutes west of the city in the suburb of Avondale.
NASCAR completed a $178 million renovation of the track in 2018 and soon after moved the championship weekend there from Homestead-Miami Speedway, which had the championship from 2002-2019.
While the 1-mile track has seen limited passing in recent years, the advocacy from drivers and industry for the race to move isn't totally predicated against anything specific to Phoenix.
With NASCAR's one-race championship format, moving the race gives the championship a different look, with potentially different favorites.
The Homestead City Council last month approved a resolution to work with county and state leaders, through the Florida Sports Commission, to put together a bid to NASCAR for the 2026 championship weekend.
When it was originally in Homestead, the weekend was a tentpole event for Ford, which sponsored the entire championship.
NASCAR has not announced its full 2025 schedule but this is what's known so far:
--The Daytona 500 is scheduled for Feb. 16, 2025, according to a news release issued in February.
--The Coca-Cola 600 will remain on Memorial Day weekend.
--With the current Daytona date and the Coke 600 date as the first race for Prime Video, which would be the 13th race of the year, there is room for one-off weekend. That is expected to be Easter.
--The Atlanta playoff race will move to the summer as a Saturday night race, June 28.
--With the Phoenix race announced as Nov. 2, that would mean, if Easter is an off-weekend, 28 weekends for the last 28 Cup races – so unless NASCAR opts for a midweek race (its previous efforts did not produce positive results), the series would run the last 28 races without an off-weekend. This year, it is doing 23 consecutive events from Daytona through Indianapolis before having an off-weekend.
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
