“A Great Partnership!” Ben Kennedy Gives Major Update on NASCAR’s Potential Return to San Diego in 2027

The NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego was a massive success. It witnessed some wild and entreating moments with front runner Shane van Gisbergen wrecking out early in a multi-car crash while part-time Corey Heim beat championship leader Tyler Reddick to win the event.

The TV rating was solid has well, with the broadcasting peaking at 2.30 million viewers. So, will all this make NASCAR to come back to the venue to race in 2027? Well, the discussion has started and executive vice president Ben Kennedy addressed it on Sunday. He called it a tremendously successful event and one of the best ways to celebrate 250th anniversary of the USA.

This is a tremendously successful event. Obviously, we want to be respectful that this is an active military base at the same time. So, it is a great partnership, a great pairing being the 250th anniversary of the United States Navy, 250th anniversary of the United States of America. I couldn’t ask for a better time than this.

Ben Kennedy said after San Diego race.

Ben Kennedy also expressed openness to racing in Mexico City again when asked about the possibility of that. San Diego took the place of Mexico City, which is currently busy hosting the FIFA World Cup, on the 2026 NASCAR schedule.

"What I can tell you is it's an important market… https://t.co/ewpn1vr3ZA pic.twitter.com/pNcQH7X4SE

— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) June 22, 2026

The ex-racer turned senior NASCAR official confirmed that he would love the sport to return to the venues, but admits that there are some big challenges. One key issue is the fact that Naval Base Coronado is an active military site and it needs to respected while doing commercial projects. So, it is unsure whether the sport will return to the track in 2027.

We would love to return. We’re also cognizant of the fact that this is an active military base and we want to be mindful of that as well.

Ben Kennedy added.

Ben Kennedy reveals NASCAR long-term plans for street course racing

In the same media session, Ben Kennedy also talked about the future of street races in NASCAR. He highlighted how NASCAR just started racing in temporary street tracks and admitted that in the long run they are looking to having one or two events in the schedule.

We weren’t really in the street course business four or five years ago. We were in the permanent facility business. That is what a majority of the NASCAR schedule is going to continue to be for a long period of time…At the same time, street courses, I believe we would have one or two on them for a long period of time in the future of our schedule.

Ben Kennedy said.

Further talking about the point, he admitted that one major reason that makes street course races hard for NASCAR is the fact that they are renting most of the equipment’s to host these races. If they can acquire more dedicated/permanent recourses, the sport will have more opportunities explore new markets.

A lot of the equipment we bring in over these weekends… are rented. I think there might be an opportunity for us to partner with someone, purchase a lot of this equipment. Once we have this, we have a team dedicated to it year-round, people that can pop into different markets two, three years in advance, help us prime that market so… we can pop in the facility and be ready to go.

Ben Kennedy added.

The comments from the veteran are on point and shows NASCAR is looking into having more regular road course/street races in the schedule. It would be interesting to see how many non-oval races is going to feature in the 2027 schedule.

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