The weekend NASCAR fans have been waiting for all year is finally here, with 2026 championships in all three NASCAR series to be decided this weekend — the Craftsman Truck Series, O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and of course, the NASCAR Cup Series. The entire NASCAR world descends on Miami, Florida — or to be precise, on Homestead, a suburb of about 86,000 population, 41 miles south of Miami.
But fans who can’t make it to South Florida should be aware of a quiet change in the TV broadcast plans for the first on-track event of the championship weekend.
NASCAR will stream Craftsman Truck Series practice at Homestead-Miami Speedway exclusively on its own NASCAR Channel Thursday night, with no FS2 broadcast ahead of the season finale.
With Kaden Honeycutt and Layne Riggs separated by roughly 20 points in the title chase, the new arrangement raises a question about where NASCAR’s practice sessions head next.
The hourlong truck practice session runs from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, Nov. 5, and will air without commercials. The channel is NASCAR’s free streaming service, and is available on Prime Video, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi, Xumo Play, LG Channels, TCLtv+, Sling Freestream and Plex, as well as on the NASCAR mobile app and nascar.com.
Truck qualifying broadcast plans have not changed. Drivers take the track Friday at 2:30 p.m. EST on FS2, and the championship race follows at 7:30 p.m. on the wider-reaching FS1.
Riggs won seven races this season, more than any other Chase driver, yet Honeycutt led the standings once the Chase began. After a 19th-place finish at Kansas, Riggs offered a plainspoken assessment of the setback.
“We can’t change anything in the past,” Riggs said. “We’ve just got to look forward to the future.”
That future arrives Friday night, when one race, 134 laps long, decides which driver walks away with the Truck Series championship.
Where NASCAR Truck Practice Has Aired in 2026
FS2 has been the usual home for Truck practice this season. Last Friday’s session at Martinsville Speedway ran on FS2 and the FOX One streaming platform, with qualifying on the same channels about an hour later.
The races themselves sit on the FOX Sports side of the ledger, mostly on FS1, select events on FOX. Elsewhere on the NASCAR dial, Cup Series practice on truTV, HBO Max has been the standard, with Prime Video carrying sessions earlier in the year. O’Reilly Auto Parts Series sessions stream on The CW app.
Homestead itself offers precedent in both directions. The March 2025 visit put Truck practice on FS2 at 3:35 p.m. EDT. In October 2024, though, the Truck session had no television coverage at all.
Why NASCAR Moved Truck Series Practice Off FS2
NASCAR had not publicly explained the broadcast decision as of Monday. The body also has not described the Homestead session as the first step toward moving practice or qualifying to its own network, and its weekly television guide lists no other Truck, O’Reilly or Cup practice or qualifying sessions on the channel.
FOX Sports still holds the Truck Series rights under the multiyear media agreements NASCAR struck with FOX, NBC, Prime Video and TNT Sports, which began with the 2025 season. The NASCAR Channel fits alongside those partners as an owned digital outlet, not a replacement for them.
The timing coincides with a homecoming. Homestead-Miami hosted Championship Weekend from 2002 through 2019 before Phoenix took over in 2020, and NASCAR now rotates the finale among tracks, with Homestead first in line.
Fans who followed the Truck Series on FS2 all year now need a streaming app, a smart TV or the NASCAR website to see it.
Honeycutt held a 43-point lead over Riggs entering Martinsville. The gap has since shrunk to about 20, leaving the title to be settled in one race.
Whether the NASCAR Channel hosts another Truck session after Thursday is a question NASCAR has not addressed so far.
NASCAR Quietly Makes TV Broadcast Change Before Championship Weekend