Inaugural NASCAR Race Weekend at Naval Base Coronado is a First-Class Affair
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (June 18, 2026) – The inaugural NASCAR race weekend at Qualcomm Circuit on Naval Base Coronado in San Diego is just like the fictional KVWN Channel 4 News anchorman and favorite son of San Diego, Ron Burgundy. It’s kind of a big deal.
Racing on the 3.4-mile, 16-turn street circuit has been highly anticipated ever since its announcement last July. It’s the first time a NASCAR event has ever been held on an active United States military base, and it coincides with the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy.
The only parallel to this first-time venue is the Chicago Street Course, which ran from 2023 through 2025 on the streets surrounding Grant Park. But unlike Chicago, where its downtown circuit was asphalt, San Diego will feature new pavement, old pavement, new concrete, old concrete, and a few girder rails embedded in the various surfaces. While it’s the same for everyone, simulation is all drivers and teams have to go on. But races aren’t contested on flat screens. It’s real-world running, where drivers in 3,400-pound racecars pound the ground and each other in pursuit of a big trophy.
“NASCAR is a contact sport on road courses,” said Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Rocket Doctor AI Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing. “We go into it with a have-at-it mentality, to where if there’s a racing surface that you can plant four tires on, you do it. Beating and banging is expected. It’s very different from the etiquette and thought process behind road racing anywhere else.”
Ware knows. He won the 2019-2020 LMP2 championship in the Asian Le Mans Series with co-driver Gustas Grinbergas, and in a prelude to that title, Ware was the 2014 Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America Rookie of the Year. In January 2024 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Ware piloted a Ligier JS P320 to a podium finish in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge LMP3 class. He has also competed in Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup and the NTT IndyCar Series.
“If you go anywhere else and you even breathe on someone the wrong way, you’re penalized and get a drive-thru penalty,” Ware said. “In other series, there are so many rules and regulations on how to pass and when to pass and when you have to let somebody go, you feel like you’re not able to race at your full capacity.”
Full capacity is the name of the game in NASCAR. It’s expected of the drivers, and it’s the drivers’ expectation of their racecars.
“Our cars can take the hits, they can take the rubbing, they can take the racing. They’re very durable. Our races have become more of a left-and-right-turn short-track race than a road-course race,” Ware said.
“Sports cars are very fragile compared to stock cars. If you’re in a dedicated sports car series, you give someone a donut, that can rip off a body panel, or if you hit them too hard from behind, their wing falls off.”
The no-holds-barred nature of Cup Series road-course racing, where things can escalate quickly, has made for compelling viewing, be it in person or on TV.
“NASCAR racing on road courses right now is some of the best it’s ever been. We have a lot of parity from first to last,” Ware said. “Whether we’re racing in the dry or racing in wet conditions, everyone’s gotten really good at road racing, so we put on a great race.”
Fans coming to San Diego for Sunday’s Anduril 250 shouldn’t act like they’re not impressed.
“I think the street race at Naval Base Coronado is going to be a spectacle. It’ll be on a whole new level when compared to Chicago,” Ware said.
Even before NASCAR went to Chicago, Ware was familiar with street racing.
“I ran the Nashville street course with IndyCar back in ’21, and that’s probably the closest thing I can compare San Diego to,” Ware said. “We went across that bridge into downtown Nashville at a very high rate of speed, but there was a lot of runoff. The track was built way wider than San Diego. So I’d say from the aggressiveness and speed standpoint, Nashville is very similar, but from a technical and tightness standpoint, I’ve really never experienced a street course like San Diego. There’s no room for error. It’s going to make for a very chaotic race.”
Chaos, however, can sow opportunity. And with San Diego being a first-time event, everyone arrives with the same amount of track time.
“Anytime the playing field is a little bit more level, it plays in our favor,” Ware said. “There’s a lot that’s in my hands to have a really good day, more so compared to other tracks where drivers have more experience.”
Drivers begin building their San Diego experience Friday with a 90-minute track walk starting at 6:30 a.m. PDT. The first time they get to turn a wheel in anger around the bayside circuit is at 2 p.m. PDT/5 p.m. EDT on Friday for a 50-minute open practice, and that’s all the time they’ll have before qualifying at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT on Saturday. A driver’s quick lap in qualifying will set their starting spot on Sunday when the Anduril 250 goes green at 1 p.m. PDT/4 p.m. EDT. All of the action will be broadcast live by Prime Video and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
About Rick Ware Racing:
Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age 6 when the third-generation racer began his driving career and has since spanned four wheels and two wheels on both asphalt and dirt. Competing in the SCCA Trans Am Series and other road-racing divisions led Ware to NASCAR in the early 1980s, where he finished third in his NASCAR debut – the 1983 Warner W. Hodgdon 300 NASCAR Grand American race at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway. More than a decade later, injuries would force Ware out of the driver’s seat and into full-time team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with his wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that competes full-time in the elite NASCAR Cup Series while simultaneously campaigning successful teams in the Top Fuel class of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, Progressive American Flat Track, FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) and zMAX CARS Tour.
