Aside from the fact that the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is once again set to be the championship race, nothing about NASCAR's second annual In-Season Challenge tournament has remained fully consistent from what it was in 2025.
A date swap between Sonoma Raceway and EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta Motor Speedway) saw Sonoma host this year's tournament opened this past weekend, while Atlanta is set to host round three next weekend, like Sonoma did a year ago.
But beyond that, the other two tracks that hosted tournament races in 2025 are no longer on the tournament schedule, or even this year's 36-race championship schedule as a whole.
2 tracks removed from NASCAR tournament for 2026
This Sunday night, Chicagoland Speedway is set to host its first Cup Series race since 2019. The track, which was on the 2020 calendar as well before COVID-19-related restrictions resulted in its replacement, has replaced the Chicago Street Course on this year's calendar.
The Chicago street race was the sport's first-ever street race, and it was added to the calendar in 2023 on Independence Day weekend, which is when Chicagoland hosted its 2018 race. It remained in its calendar slot for both the 2024 and 2025 seasons, and as a result, it hosted the tournament's second race in 2025.
This year's street race, held on Naval Base Coronado, was actually the replacement for the race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which lasted only one year.
Aside from the Chicago Street Course, the other track removed from not only the In-Season Challenge but from the 2026 calendar entirely, as far as points races go, was Dover Motor Speedway.
Dover still hosted a race in mid-May, but that was the exhibition All-Star Race. Prior to 2026, the most recent year in which the Monster Mile did not host a single points race was 1968, which was the year before the track even opened.
Dover hosted the fourth round of the tournament in 2025, and now that slot belongs to North Wilkesboro Speedway, which had been the host of the All-Star Race since 2023. North Wilkesboro had not hosted any Cup Series races since 1996, prior to its 2023 addition, and it still hasn't hosted a points race in three decades. That is set to change in just over two weeks.
Aside from Chicago, Mexico, and Dover, the only other track to be knocked off the points-paying portion of the 2026 calendar is the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, which had hosted a playoff race each year since 2018. The track's oval was simply given back its second race date for the first time since 2017 in a move that was confirmed just before the 2026 season began.
Tune in to TNT this Sunday, July 5 at 6:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the eero 400 from Chicagoland Speedway. Don't miss the second race of this year's NASCAR In-Season Challenge and the first race at Chicagoland in seven years!
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