NASCAR road and street course season is over and it hit the spot this year

Goodbye, NASCAR road course season, and a fond farewell to the streets of Naval Base Coronado.

Yes, that’s right. We have put the left- and right-hand turns in the rearview mirror for 2026.

The rest of the NASCAR Cup Series season is all about turning left. There were four road and street courses on the ’26 schedule, and they’ve all been visited before the calendar flips to July.

It’s OK to do a double take. After all, for the last decade or so, everyone had been conditioned to expect road and street courses to appear throughout the season, with one appearing within the first two months, then a few more in the summer, and then one or two more in the fall.

The last one, which had traditionally been the Charlotte Roval, was usually not run until late September or October. And by that point, the Roval was either the fifth or sixth road and street course of the season because NASCAR kept adding more and more.

What a change from having two through much of the 2000s and 2010s. There were six road and street courses on the 2025 schedule and it was too much, especially with three in a five-week stretch or, more broadly, four in a nine-week stretch during the summer. It was as exhausting as 2021, when there were seven, because of the addition of the one-off Daytona road course race needed to replace Auto Club Speedway.

Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen had been the only road courses on the Cup Series schedule for much of the last few decades, and it was like clockwork where they fell on the calendar. The drivers were used to them, the fans knew when to expect them, and they provided just a little bit of variety to the NASCAR schedule.

Not until 2018 did the schedule expand from those two traditional road course races to three with the creation of the Charlotte Roval. NASCAR stuck with three until that ’21 season when Circuit of the Americas, Road America, and the Indianapolis road course joined the fray. Over the last four years, the schedule has consistently included six road and street-course races, except in 2024, when there were five.

Daytona served its purpose and was only used for one year. Road America quietly disappeared. A wrong in Indianapolis was finally righted after three years with a return to the oval. Mexico, thus far, has been a one-and-done. Chicago had three great years before pausing this season, only for a return to be rumored for 2027. And, thankfully, the Roval is no more because the oval is back.

But now NASCAR has discovered a love for San Diego after a successful event with the Navy two weeks ago. Plus, wherever else NASCAR finds that they can put a racetrack.

Naval Base Cornado proved popular. David Jensen/Getty Images

So, where does that leave us as we bid adieu to the roads and streets of 2026 and go forward?

It is highly unlikely the sport will ever go back to that two-race-a-year model of Sonoma and Watkins Glen. Five, six, and seven are way too much. While there have been some great road and street course races, and this year was no different, too much of it in one season brings fatigue.

Four is a sweet number, though. Maybe realistically, five is where NASCAR is going to land because you start by looking at the ones that are seemingly grandfathered in. Sonoma and Watkins Glen are not going anywhere. Circuit of the Americas has proven its worth.

NASCAR is well aware that it is a sport of ovals, and that is what is expected of it and what the majority of its schedule will be going forward. Ben Kennedy, the COO, reiterated this after San Diego, noting that the permanent facilities (oval racetracks) are the bread and butter of the sport and its schedule, but also acknowledged that one or two street-course races are the future.

So, NASCAR is left trying to strike the right balance between the three road courses it has and where on the streets it wants to go. Chicago and San Diego have received rave reviews, and return visits would be great. But from there, a rotation model would be better than going back to adding more and more, and suddenly we’re back to five or six lefts and rights a year.

The four races we had this year were great. The races, the locations, and the spacing. And it’s nice to have them done and dusted as the series races toward the end of the regular season and gets ready for championship season.

So, for now, we bid them goodbye with plenty of highlights to look back on. Hopefully, it goes as well next year and beyond.