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A return to the Chicagoland Speedway, a street race in San Diego and a change to championship weekend highlight the 2026 NASCAR schedule, released Wednesday.

Also to be noted are the shift of the All-Star Race to Dover Motor Speedway, as well as schedule adjustments that move annual races to non-traditional dates.

The NASCAR Cup Series begins its 38-event calendar with the Clash, an exhibition at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Feb. 1. The traditional season opener, the Daytona 500, will be run Feb. 15.

The season will conclude Nov. 8 in Florida at Homestead-Miami, with the finale that will decide the 2026 championship. That race has been held the past five years at the Phoenix Raceway.

The schedule also was released Wednesday for the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, which replaces the Xfinity Series, and the Craftsman Truck Series. The former will run 33 races, with the latter holding 25 events.

Racing returns to Chicagoland after six years away. The street race in downtown Chicago, held the past three seasons, is being replaced by the Chicagoland event in suburban Joliet, Ill.

The street race, instead, moves to a military base in Coronado, Calif., a San Diego suburb.

'Obviously, a lot of collaboration, a lot of time, a lot of energy that went into it, and it's just a good blend like we've had over the past few years of innovation and tradition, of being able to celebrate our history and our roots and where we come from, but then also having these bold new moves that we're introducing to the schedule,' said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovation officer.

'For events like a street race in San Diego at the Naval Base Coronado or taking the championship race back to Homestead-Miami Speedway or even a beloved track that our fans have been asking for the past several years in bringing a points race back to Chicagoland, or bringing a points race to North Wilkesboro for the first time in 30 years. So a lot of milestone moments that will be created next year, certainly a lot of anticipated moments, I think, that our fans are going to have. Certainly proud of the work that everyone's done to help put this together.'

Chicagoland also will be part of the five-race In-Season Challenge, a bracket-style tournament that will begin at Sonoma on June 28, then run through Chicagoland, EchoPark Speedway in Georgia and North Wilkesboro in North Carolina before concluding with the finale at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 26.

The Cup Series also will have two bye weeks, up from one.

The full 2026 Cup Series schedule follows:

Feb. 1 -- Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium

Feb. 15 -- Daytona 500

Feb. 22 -- Atlanta

March 1 -- Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas

March 8 -- Phoenix

March 15 -- Las Vegas

March 22 -- Darlington, S.C.

March 29 -- Martinsville, Va.

April 5 -- off

April 12 -- Bristol, Tenn.

April 19 -- Kansas

April 26 -- Talladega, Ala.

May 3 -- Texas

May 10 -- Watkins Glen, N.Y.

May 17 -- All-Star Race (Dover, Del.)

May 24 -- Coca-Cola 600 (Charlotte)

May 31 -- Nashville

June 7 -- Michigan

June 14 -- Pocono (Long Pond, Pa.)

June 21 -- San Diego

June 28 -- Sonoma, Calif.

July 5 -- Chicagoland

July 12 -- Atlanta

July 19 -- North Wilkesboro

July 26 -- Brickyard 400 (Indianapolis)

Aug. 2 -- off

Aug. 9 -- Iowa

Aug. 15 -- Richmond, Va.

Aug. 23 -- New Hampshire

Aug. 29 -- Daytona, Fla.

Sept. 6 -- Darlington

Sept. 13 -- Gateway (Madison, Ill.)

Sept. 19 -- Bristol

Sept. 27 -- Kansas

Oct. 4 -- Las Vegas

Oct. 11 -- Charlotte Roval

Oct. 18 -- Phoenix

Oct. 25 -- Talladega

Nov. 1 -- Martinsville

Nov. 8 -- Homestead, Fla.

--Field Level Media