Coronado

Circuit History

Motor racing at North Island has always had a slightly surreal edge: barriers, grandstands and pit lanes built up against a backdrop of hangars, flightlines and warships. Long before NASCAR’s arrival, the base had already proved it could host a major event without losing its day job.

The racing story began with the Coronado Speed Festival, run under the auspices of the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA). Starting in the late 1990s, organizers performed a logistical miracle every year, carving a temporary circuit out of active runways and taxiways in a matter of days.

The layout was a 1.7-mile (2.7 km) exercise in "improvisational" racing. Drivers often mentioned the abrupt surface changes between asphalt and concrete, with grip varying lap by lap as the racing line rubbered in.

National-level racing also arrived in bite-sized form. The Global MX-5 Cup ran at Coronado in 2012 and 2013, demonstrating that the tight, makeshift airfield layout could still produce proper wheel-to-wheel competition

In 2014, Robby Gordon’s Stadium Super Trucks added a different kind of drama, using the same basic airfield setting for a show built around jumps and big hits. It was an incongruous sight even by Coronado standards: race trucks launching skywards with active runways and naval infrastructure framing the action.

Big atmosphere, fragile finances

Despite the atmosphere, the festival struggled with its "day job" economics. After Chrysler withdrew as a title sponsor in 2007, the event’s financial health faltered. Reports showed the festival lost over $333,000 between 2007 and 2015, ending only two of those years in the black.

"The vintage-car guys were convinced this was in the best interests of the sailors and Marines," noted Festival Chairman and retired Navy Captain, Larry Blumberg. "They thought the connection between sailors and cars was important enough to keep pushing."

Ultimately, the maths didn't work. By 2016, with mounting losses threatening the insolvency of the Fleet Week Foundation, the event was officially shuttered, initially blamed on runway repairs but eventually attributed to "mounting event losses."

The new era: NASCAR’s "declassified" circuit

After a nearly decade-long hiatus, North Island returned to the spotlight in 2025. In a bold move, NASCAR announced it would replace the Chicago Street Race with a three-series weekend at Naval Base Coronado in June 2026, timed to coincide with the U.S. Navy’s 250th Anniversary.

At that point, the key unknown was the track. The older Coronado Speed Festival course was too short and too improvised for NASCAR’s national touring package, so a longer, more structured layout was developed around base roads and waterfront areas, to the east of the runways.

In October 2025, NASCAR released the first full renderings of its Coronado street circuit, rather knowingly describing it as “declassified drawings”. At 16 turns and 3.4 miles (5.47 km), the track diagram showed it would be the longest course on NASCAR’s 2026 schedule.

The design sends the field away from the Ellyson Start/Finish Line into a sequence of square-edged corners, then out along the bay before looping back towards the interior of the base and the airfield.

Several signature points were named to tie the lap to North Island’s heritage and scenery. “Carrier Corner” sits by the docking location of two aircraft carriers, while “Runway Road” runs close to Runway 18/36 at Halsey Field. The “Coronado Chicane” is positioned as a rhythm-breaking complex as the track turns back towards the base’s central areas.

A new tradition

The 2026 weekend is structured for maximum impact. Friday’s Navy Community Day focuses on base personnel and local residents, while the general public descends on Saturday for the Xfinity Series and Sunday for the main event: the Anduril 250: Race at the Base.

North Island has therefore transitioned from a niche vintage gathering to NASCAR’s biggest stage, proving that the allure of "speed at the base" is as strong as ever.

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