NASCAR launched its first-ever street race at San Diego’s historic Naval Base Coronado this weekend. The sights were second to none, making it possibly the most stunning NASCAR weekend of all-time.
With all three NASCAR divisions racing at the street course, which took place on the base itself, 50,000 people packed the base each day. NASCAR COO Ben Kennedy, who is the mastermind of changing the NASCAR schedule, began to publicly evaluate how the San Diego weekend went from multiple facets.
“We said from the start this is more than a race, this is a mission,” Kennedy said. “I think we all looked around the room today and we said mission has been accomplished.”
The challenge of putting on this race was quite difficult for NASCAR, as the U.S. Navy agreed to spend several months preparing the base for the 3.4-mile course. It also had to implement strict security restrictions for the abundance of fans who flocked to the base in droves.
With three epic races, NASCAR capped off the weekend with a historic first career Cup Series win by Corey Heim, whooping the field by over 10 seconds.
NASCAR’s Naval Base Coronado Lessons
Unlike when the NTT IndyCar Series competes at street courses, NASCAR racecars are much heavier. So when they wreck into one of the barriers, they are bound to fold. That’s exactly what happened throughout the weekend, most notably in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race. A 25-car wreck led to a broken fence and a 43-minute red flag to repair the concrete wall.
The walls certainly did their job, preventing cars from going even more out of control and keeping the drivers safe with relatively major impacts. Anthony Alfredo called it the hardest wreck of his career.
“Unfortunately, we did have some wall repairs that we had to go through,” Kennedy said. “What I would say on the flipside of that is the walls held up. They did what they needed to do. Anytime you saw a vehicle go into the wall, push back a bit, which we were expecting and hoping for.
“All I can say on that front is we have a team that is always working on making sure that we are operationally ready for moments like that. We had some learnings yesterday. We applied them today. I would say going forward we’re going to make sure we reduce the amount of time to repair those walls as much as we can.”
NASCAR also admitted the narrow lanes to get onto the base posed a major traffic issue. They are also evaluating several other categories of how to handle traffic and sell tickets to street races in the future.
“It is a pretty narrow passageway,” Kennedy said. “We could have sold more tickets. We cut it off 50,000 people per day. We wanted to make sure the ingress and egress was palatable for a lot of our fans.
“Over the last couple days, watching concessions, our bathrooms, some of the different areas, some logjams around some of the bridges. We had all-hands ops meetings every single day. We got everyone together after the event yesterday. Overnight we were making phone calls. We brought in food trucks. Brought in extra staff to help work our bars, our concession stands. In real-time our team was working on areas to continue to improve that fan experience.”
The Future of NASCAR At Naval Base Coronado
Kennedy made it clear that NASCAR wants to return to Naval Base Coronado. However, he and the entire sanctioning body are cognizant of such a challenge.
“Last thing I’ll say is, you guys will ask about this, what does the future look like, are we coming back, are we not coming back,” Kennedy explained. “What I can tell you is we feel this is a tremendously successful event. We want to be respectful that this is an active military base at the same time. This is a great partnership, a great pairing being the 250th anniversary of the United States Navy, 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Couldn’t ask for a better time than this. We would love to return. We’re also cognizant of the fact this is active military base. We want to be mindful of that, as well.”
Kennedy went even further, explaining that NASCAR will be deciding the future of this race soon. If it is not at Naval Base Coronado, the concept proved to work.
“What we are going to do after this weekend is have a deep dive after-action review with our entire team,” Kennedy said. “We’re going to sit down with the United States Navy and talk about what did we learn, what worked well. You guys had a chance to go around this weekend, see some new activations and elements that we were testing. Might be able to apply to other tracks. Some areas we want to make improvements on going forward. I’d like to sit down with them, have a debrief, then have a conversation about is there an opportunity for us to return here.”
Kennedy revealed that 67% of people that attended the event this weekend have never been to a race. That is certainly a good reason to do it once again.
NASCAR Evaluates Future Of San Diego Street Race At Naval Base Coronado