NASCAR Schedule Transcripts: Ben Kennedy & Jusan Hamilton

NASCAR Media Conference Press Conference Wednesday, August 20, 2025 An Interview with: Ben Kennedy (pictured) and Jusan Hamilton on the 2026 NASCAR Schedules released today.

BRENT GAMBILL: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss the 2026 NASCAR national series schedules. We’re joined today by Ben Kennedy, executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovation officer, and Jusan Hamilton, managing director, competition operations.

To get us started, Ben, can you walk us through the new venues and highlights of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, of course, Brent. First of all, welcome to everyone. Thank you for being here today, and importantly, thank you guys for covering our sport. Always great to see such a good turnout for our schedule day, and good to finally have this one announced.

Obviously a lot of collaboration, a lot of work that went into this. We’ll hear from Jusan in a minute who really spearheaded much of the scheduling work that has been done.

As Brent mentioned, this is a landmark schedule for us, one that celebrates and honors our history while giving us opportunities to take bold new steps into the future. A handful of announcements that we’ve already made to date. I think the most anticipated one that everyone is talking about is our first race on a military base in San Diego at Naval Base Coronado, which will be on June 19th to the 21st next year. A huge opportunity for us to partner up with the Navy and our military and both celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country and our Navy but then also recognize the great men and women that serve for our country every single day and give us the ability to do what we love to do.

Really looking forward to that. I can say ticket sales or deposits are going very quick, so if anyone is interested in coming, I would urge them to reach out sooner than later.

The Clash will return to Bowman Gray Stadium for its second annual event to unofficially kick off our season two weeks prior to the Daytona 500, which will be on Presidents Day weekend.

Then we’ve also announced that we will be moving the championship to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the first time in several years, and we will be kicking off a championship rotation as part of that.

Today a handful of new announcements and storylines that we also have to talk about. One is North Wilkesboro being a points race. We had about 70 percent of our fans and four out of five 18- to 34-year-olds that asked for North Wilkesboro to move into a points event, so we’re going to move that into July into TNT’s portion of the season with Dale Junior in the booth, who I know has been a big advocate of turning North Wilkesboro into a points event. Excited to make that change for them.

Chicagoland will also return a couple weeks prior to that, so the first time in about seven years that we’ve been to Joliet for our NASCAR Cup Series, and if you look at the racing product for our mile-and-a-half tracks of the Next-Gen car, they’re second to none on the schedule. Mile-and-a-half racing has been some of the best racing we’ve seen every single week, and we have a little bit of dust to knock off in Joliet before we go there in July of next year, but July 4th weekend of the country’s 250th anniversary, couldn’t ask for a better location than the Midwest and being in Chicagoland.

Additionally, the All-Star Race will go to Dover, so the first time at Dover Motor Speedway, the first time we will have an All-Star Race on one-mile track, and then the first time we’re also having the All-Star Race in the northeast.

Part of this decision was in collaboration certainly with Speedway Motorsports. We also took into account weather. Certainly you guys saw the Dover race in July this year; it is hot and humid in Dover in July, so we wanted to move it closer to its original date in May. Then also an opportunity for us to change things and move to a new location for the All-Star Race.

We’ll take a three-week vacation for our Cup Series, our O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and our Craftsman Truck Series between TNT and NBC’s portion of the season. This came from feedback that we had from the entire industry a couple years ago when we took two weeks off, everyone had a chance to relax, decompress before we came back. I think the next week was Richmond that year, so it’ll be very similar to that. We’ll take one week off this time before we come back to Iowa for the last four regular-season races before we go into our playoffs.

I would say probably one of the strongest playoff schedules we’ve had so far, a great blend of very traditional tracks like Darlington kicking it off on Labor Day weekend, the Bristol Night Race, Talladega Superspeedway, which has been a part of the playoffs since it really started.

Then a handful of small changes. So Las Vegas will move a little bit earlier into the playoff schedule along with Kansas. Phoenix will stay within three weeks of its current date, so they will be in mid-October. Then as I mentioned, championship will be Homestead-Miami Speedway.

A lot to talk about certainly on the Cup schedule, and I know Jusan is going to be talking a little bit about the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series, as well.

BRENT GAMBILL: Thanks, Ben. We’ll go to Jusan to discuss the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Each of those series have new venues next season. Jusan, can you share a little bit more about those changes and other things with those schedules.

JUSAN HAMILTON: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Brent. Appreciate everyone being here this afternoon. It’s great to be here with you again after another year of working through our schedule development process.

For those of you who don’t know me, my job working under Ben’s leadership is to be kind of the architect leading our schedule strategy group, and it’s a year-round process. As Ben mentioned, we’re constantly weighing opinions and responses from various industry stakeholders, getting feedback from teams, working with our partners at Speedway Motorsports, the independent track promoters, and that includes what we’re doing on the support series side of things as well.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t start out by welcoming our new partners, O’Reilly Auto Parts, as the new entitlement partner over our NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starting in 2026, obviously taking the reins from Xfinity who has been a great partner over the years and coming out with a really strong schedule for them next year as they kick off in their inaugural season was certainly very important to us.

Some of the big highlights as you look at the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and the Craftsman Truck Series in 2026, both returning on the Cup off week to Rockingham Speedway. I think we saw an incredible fan response with the return to the Rock, again coming back last year, really highlighting the drivers in those series, letting them stand on their own for that weekend while Cup has that weekend off. Also for the industry and everyone being able to be home with their families on that Easter Sunday, certainly something important that we wanted to continue, and really allows us to highlight those two series.

Ben hit on San Diego and Naval Base Coronado. Really that’s been an incredible project to bring together, not just for the NASCAR Cup Series but also for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. With the return of Ram in 2026 to the Craftsman Truck Series, being able to have them out there in that Southern California market along with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, a three-wide weekend — I was just doing out there in San Diego last week meeting with our partners and our folks at the Navy, and the excitement level in the community, even around Coronado, just knowing NASCAR is coming to town next year has been incredible.

The excitement among our men and women at the armed forces that are stationed at that base has been incredible as well. It’s really going to be a great highlight for all three series next year over the summer.

Then as you look further down the schedule, feedback from the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and making sure we’re taking care of their garage similar to Cup with the off week and in the summer, but also giving them a few more summer off weeks to be home with their families and make sure that while the kids are out of school, we’re taking care of the folks that are working hard in the industry as well.

Lime Rock Park, that was a new addition to the Craftsman Truck Series schedule in 2025. Having them back on the schedule, they fall in July again this year, so a few weeks later than we had them this year in June, but we saw, again, a great fan response from that northeast fan coming out to Lime Rock Park. We look forward to returning there and continuing to build on the great partnership we’ve started there.

Then as well, as you look through the close of the season, something we really looked at is making sure that our playoffs are consistent among all three series, so you’ll notice that the playoffs kick off at Bristol for both the Truck Series and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, and cohesive through the final few weeks of the season, wrapping up at Homestead and return to a championship Homestead-Miami Speedway. Those are some other elements that we looked at as we worked through each of those schedules.

Overall it’s a long process. As we move one piece for Cup or for Xfinity and Truck, it affects another one. It’s definitely been something that the team has put a lot of effort into.

One last one I’ll close on, St. Pete joining INDYCAR with the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, that’ll be the first street course in the 30-year history of the Truck Series when they race here, so really the first two street courses for the Truck Series will take place in 2026 between St. Pete and San Diego.

Really cool to be able to go into that major market in Tampa and kick off the road course portion of the schedule for the Truck Series at that course, another unique market, another unique opportunity to make sure we’re putting our sport in front of audiences, new audiences that are interested in seeing our product.

Again, really proud of all the work that everyone on the schedule strategy team has put fort this year to get to this point.

The release says Round of 16, Round of 8, kind of the same playoff system that you currently have. Is that a confirmation that the playoff system won’t change for next year?

BEN KENNEDY: It’s not yet. I know the playoff committee has had a number of meetings over the past several months on different formats that we could look at, and they’ve run a handful of simulations on just various formats, collected some fan feedback.

I know there are conversations as early as a couple days ago on what the future of the playoff format looks like. Nothing to announce today. What I would say, though, is we want to make sure that we take the time to do it right, that we collect as much information as we can, and hopefully whatever this new format is, if there is a new format, it’s something that will last a long time.

We want to be thoughtful and diligent about it, make sure we make the right decisions and moves and give both our fans and our competitors something that they can be really proud of going forward.

Move to come on that in the future.

As far as the All-Star Race, is that expected? I assume it would be a day race, or could you put up temporary lights? And why Dover over maybe Nashville or some of the other Speedway Motorsports tracks that could be an option?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, likewise, more than likely, it will be a day race at Dover. We worked with Speedway Motorsports on the shift there. Part of it was taking into consideration whether moving them into May felt like it was a better time of year from at least a heat perspective, and we considered a handful of other tracks as well. We felt like that one was the best.

A number of considerations just as we think about each one of these moves, and Dover was the best option that we had for ’26.

Jusan, I know you’re an upstate New York guy. You have a lot more experience with the weather there than I do, but Watkins Glen moving to May, I’ve seen some of the reaction from social media that it still can be pretty chilly up there in that part of May. What was the thinking moving that race to that time of year?

JUSAN HAMILTON: Yeah, absolutely, and you’re correct. I’m from Ithaca, New York, so I spent a lot of time at Watkins Glen, and I think the first time I went to the Glen was probably 1995 or 1996. It’ll definitely be a change to have that race take place in May.

The cool thing about having the race take place that time of year, school is still in session, the population of central New York is much higher that time of year, so you have the opportunity to potentially reach a fan demographic up there that’s typically not around during the summer.

As far as weather goes, you look — we look at a lot of data at all our venues, and weather is always certainly a consideration. You look at that time of the year, it says on average lower 70s during the day, chance of rain is relatively low even compared to August. The data that we’ve looked at.

I can tell you from experience, I don’t want to — my personal experience to be what dictates our moves ever, but being up there recently in May, still have folks that live in that area, it typically feels like summer in May. I don’t see a huge risk in having the race that time of year. I think the weather for camping should be great, and I think we’ll be able to put on a really good show that time of year.

Again, the important thing is being able to reach a fan demographic up there and make sure that we’re doing what we need to do for the northeast fan, which that’s where I come from, so certainly have a passion for making sure we deliver there.

Ben, I’ve got a couple for you. First off, with Wilkesboro getting a points race and that weekend going to be much bigger than it already is, has there been any conversation with Marcus or Speedway Motorsports on keeping the infield the way it is as far as once you’re in, you’re in, especially if you’re going to have what’s expected to be a 400-lap points race and kind of folks just staying in the infield?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, we’ve spoken a little bit about that. It is a consideration that we’ve talked about. To your point, if it’s a 400-lap race, a few hours for people being in the infield will probably be a little bit too long. I think it’s probably difficult to go down.

We might look at a couple different options to potentially have a bridge or something that gives people the ability to both leave the facility and then come back into the infield.

Still have to work through what that might exactly work like. Obviously in collaboration with Speedway Motorsports, but something we’ve thought about.

For either Ben or Jusan, curious how St. Petersburg for the Truck Series came about.

JUSAN HAMILTON: I think there’s a couple really good points on that one. Obviously we’ve been doing more street course racing on our end. It’s a great opportunity to work with our partners at Green Savoree who promote that event and bring the Truck Series to a market that we’re not currently in. I mentioned how big the Tampa St. Pete market is as far as fan interest on the NASCAR side.

Also with our partners at FOX, FOX obviously broadcasts both the Craftsman Truck Series for the full year and the INDYCAR Series as well. There’s a lot of collaboration that takes place anytime we link together on joint events like that. It’s also another opportunity for us to learn and grow with street course racing, as I mentioned. It’s the first street course event in 30 years, in the 30-year history of the Truck Series.

Having that event on their schedule and making sure that our development series have races on their schedule that are conducive to what we’re doing with our premier series in the NASCAR Cup Series is also very important.

Those drivers in development, one day their goal is to get to NASCAR Cup Series, and to be able to get experience on a street course in one of our lower tier series is also very important. All of that I would say plays into that decision.

This might be a Marcus question, but what is the value from NASCAR’s end in terms of having both the preseason Clash exhibition and the All-Star Race? They’re kind of redundant to a degree, right?

BEN KENNEDY: I don’t think so necessarily. We’ve worked on different formats for both the Clash and the All-Star Race. I think if you look at both of them over the past few years, the All-Star Race has been something a little more traditional. We’ve had it for decades in our sport, and it stayed at Charlotte, went to Texas, Bristol, North Wilkesboro for a few years. It’s been more of your kind of traditional, expected tracks, but your points-paying type of facilities.

Then the Clash has been something that has had a little bit of a different spin on it in the sense that it’s been created for both traditional fans and some of your newer fans as well. Two weeks before a Daytona 500 it’s a great lead-in to our biggest event of the season in Daytona, and when we took it to Los Angeles a few years ago, about 70 percent of the people that came to that event had never been to a NASCAR race before. Bowman Gray, even though it is a traditional old-school type of racetrack, we had a lot of avid fans come to that, a lot of new fans as well, and then a lot of people that haven’t consumed NASCAR before that tuned in on TV.

Even though they are both exhibition-style events, still very kind of different with respect to the format and the location and how we think about promoting those.

To the point of differentiating, this might be the most cockamamie question that you guys get all year, but is there any consideration or interest or at least not dismissing me when I ask you about the idea of having a true All-Star Race in the sense that you have Cup, Xfinity/O’Reilly and trucks on the track at the same time either on an oval or a road course? Would you guys ever even consider that?

BEN KENNEDY: I think anything is on the table. For now, we’re focused on the Cup Series. Having our biggest names and our biggest stars compete in All-Star weekend, we feel like it’s been important.

We’ve seen this at North Wilkesboro for the past few years having companion events with it, and to have O’Reilly and the Craftsman Truck Series on the same weekend in Dover gives us the ability to highlight all three series.

As it relates to other drivers coming and competing in those series, we haven’t necessarily gotten to that bridge yet, but I would never put anything out of consideration. If you think about where we were five or six years ago related to the schedule versus now, running on a military base and downtown Chicago and taking races internationally, nothing is off the table.

Ben, why are you in the position where that kind of Pacific Northwest/mountain time area has so few races? Are you comfortable with that? Is that something you’re trying to change and solve for ’27?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, we’d love to be in the Pacific Northwest at some point. I think we’ve said this a couple times: We’re always looking at new markets we could go and explore in the future, and the Pacific Northwest has always been high on our list. Whether that’s the Seattle area, the Portland region, or I would even toss Colorado, even though it’s not on the West Coast, Colorado is another market that we would like to go and explore in the future.

Even though we won’t have Portland back on the schedule next year, still have a lot of good relationships, both with Green Savoree, who’s going to be the promoter of the St. Pete event in February, but then a handful of other track owners and operators in the Pacific Northwest region.

We’ve had a few conversations with them. Nothing has come to fruition quite yet, but would love to have an opportunity to have a Cup Series event up there in the future.

Ben, I wanted to follow up on something you said about how Chicagoland needs a little dusting off before its race on July 4 weekend. I know Carson Hocevar took a couple photos of the track in its current state about two months ago, but can you talk about the condition of the facility and what work needs to be done in order to have it race ready by next year?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, for sure. So we have a facility development team that has made several site visits out to the racetrack and have taken a look at it.

I think the good news is it’s relatively race ready, so we’ll probably have to replace some of the SAFER foam. We’ll probably have to put a fresh coat of paint on it, clean up some of the grandstands, renovate some of the suite areas. There’s some parking areas that need to be repaved. We’re going to have a long list of improvements that we’ll need to make to the facility, and we’ll make that well in advance of the time that we come there in July.

Then in addition to that, we had a meeting this morning to talk about Homestead-Miami Speedway, as well. It’s important for us that when we take the industry and all of our fans down to Homestead that it feels like a first-class championship venue, so we’re going to be making improvements to the seating there, to the optics of the facility, the midway area, a lot of our suites and hospitality areas. We’re looking on a long list of capital improvements we’d like to make to Homestead. It’s not dissimilar from just overall how we’ve thought about making investments in our tracks in the past few years, whether it’s the LA Memorial Coliseum — we’ve learned through the street race in downtown Chicago how expensive it is to erect a temporary course in a setting like that.

Really important for us to continue to invest in all of our tracks and facilities and make sure that when our fans come in every single weekend that it feels like a first-class experience.

Just to follow up on what you said about the Chicago Street Course, obviously that was an event that attracted a lot of new fans to NASCAR. Since you’re still going to have a Chicago race in the area, can you talk a little bit from a strategy standpoint about how to get people who maybe came out to the street race those three years to go out to Joliet and see a race in maybe an environment that more in the past catered to a traditional NASCAR fan, if that makes sense?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, that makes perfect sense, and we would love to have fans that went to Chicago Street Race or Chicagoland or anywhere in America for that matter come join us in Joliet next summer because it is going to be something special. It’s something that a lot of fans have been asking for for the past five or six years.

We want to find a way — even though we’re not going to be in downtown Chicago, to bring a lot of those fans, and to your point, a lot of new consumers that have never had the chance to experience NASCAR before and bring them out to Joliet next year in 2026, and hopefully it’s a path for us to be back in downtown Chicago at some point in the future too.

We’ve said we’d like to potentially be back there in 2027. That remains to be seen. But that has been such an important event for us. It’s been great for our core fans. It’s been fantastic for engaging and bringing new fans into our sport and a lot of partners as well.

You saw NBC covered it really well the first year. TNT has done a great job this year as well. We’re excited about going back to Chicagoland and keeping the door open to return to the streets of Chicago.

When you looked at putting the schedule together for this year, what are one or two things you hoped to accomplish that you weren’t able to?

BEN KENNEDY: That’s a good question. I’ll let Jusan answer that as well. I think at the end of the day as we think about the schedule, we call it this 3D chess board. It really feels like a 4D chess board. But there are so many considerations that go into every single week on the schedule, and if it was the perfect schedule for everyone, we would probably have double-headers and triple-headers and quadruple-headers because there are optimal weekends for every single event on the schedule.

That said, we’re not able to do that. We want to have a race every Saturday night or Sunday that we possibly can, and that’s what our fans have come to expect.

To be able to say that there’s anything that we regret or missed, I would have a tough time saying that. I feel like it’s a really strong schedule. San Diego was the big Juan that we wanted to deliver this year. We’re really proud of it.

You look at a lot of other changes that we’re talking about, whether it’s Chicagoland or North Wilkesboro, I think a lot of moments in the schedule, and this is something we’ve been focused on, is trying to drive as much momentum through the entire season from Bowman Gray to Homestead as we can and give our fans something they can look forward to, something they’re going to be entertained by, and something they’ll either tune into TV or come out and join us at a racetrack for.

JUSAN HAMILTON: I’ll just echo what Ben said. There’s so many different considerations that we make every step of the way. From the time that we wrapped up working on the 2025 schedule until now, we took all of our learnings first and foremost from working on the 2025 schedule and applied them initially to what we started working on for ’26. As we worked through 2026 we’re looking at so much different data from fan surveys, from the industry, meeting with industry stakeholders, meeting with the teams as I mentioned, our broadcast partners, on down the line.

Then even considering for each date other potential events that are taking place around that time in those municipalities, where our fan demographic interest might be on that weekend.

I wouldn’t say there’s anything we regret because all of those learnings will then be applied to what we do to start off 2027. Really we look at it year to year and we make the announcement, but as we work through that process as a schedule strategy group, we’re really building year to year and taking those learnings, and anything that we didn’t get to apply this year because of circumstances, it’s not a loss, it’s a win for a project we’ll have for next year.

We’ll see a new entitlement partner come into the sport in 2026 with O’Reilly Auto Parts. I was wondering if they had any emphasis on where they wanted to be as far as races on the schedule or if they had specific markets or if they had any influence overall on 2026 schedule?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, I would say at the time, not necessarily. I’d say a lot of the schedule for the O’Reilly Auto Parts series is pretty similar year over year from what we had last year. Jusan hit on it. Having the opportunity to go back to Rockingham next year for the series, they’re going to San Diego. We wanted to take into consideration certainly with a new entitlement partner coming on board and the CW who has been fantastic partners, and you look at the ratings and viewership numbers every single week, and it’s been a million or north for the most part and up for the most part, double digits, as well.

We want to continue to deliver for them. Part of that is having a few standalone events, and then part of that is also making sure that they’re a part of these bigger weekends like Daytona and San Diego and championship down in Homestead. It was important for us to deliver some of those more milestone moments in the schedule for both our O’Reilly Series and our Craftsman Truck Series.

Ben, I was wondering if you could talk about the decision or what led to the path of going back to Darlington twice on the schedule for 2026 for the O’Reilly Auto Parts?

JUSAN HAMILTON: I’m happy to take that one. Obviously this year we went to Darlington once for the Xfinity Series, and I’d say there’s a lot of considerations that go into that. The fan feedback from Darlington, the camping crowd that we see at Darlington is conducive for a three-series weekend, and we know that. We’ve done that in the past.

It’s a track type that works well for that early spring date, and Ben mentioned it’s a 4D chess board. When we moved Homestead-Miami from the spring and back to the fall to close out our year, that means that dates in the spring had to shuffle around. Darlington obviously moves back into March from being in April this year. All that has an effect not just on the Cup Series but also delivering for our partners on the O’Reilly Auto Parts and the Craftsman Truck Series.

It’s a venue that can handle three series. It’s a venue that in the past has performed very well with three series, and all three series always put on great racing at Darlington, so it’s a venue that I know the teams and the industry enjoys competing at as well.

I’m kind of curious, after really enjoying the opportunities we’ve had to race in Montreal, what seems to be the continual snafu or roadblock in getting a race back to Montreal?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, we’d love to be both north of the border and south of the border in the future and potentially beyond that at some point. We’ve had a handful of conversations with a few groups north of the border interested in a national series race. We haven’t been able to deliver that yet.

But I would say that is something at that we’re taking a look at as we think about 2027 and beyond. We have some good relationships up there. I think the good news is we have experience bringing both our O’Reilly Series and our Craftsman Truck Series north of the border with a handful of promoters.

Nothing to report today, obviously, but something that is high on our consideration set for ’27.

With Dover changing to an All-Star event and not a points race, is there something in that general area since the New York market is so huge that you might be looking at in the future to bring another points race to that area?

BEN KENNEDY: Potentially, yeah. We’ve had interest from a number of groups up there as well, especially around the New York region. Had a few folks reach out in and around Philadelphia, as well.

It’s a really important part of our country, and if you think about the number of NASCAR fans, and there are a lot of huge cities in the northeast with a ton of people in it, and if you consider the amount of people and naturally the amount of NASCAR fans that you find within it, it’s a massive number.

The northeast is really important to us. We’d love to continue to be there and even have a greater presence in the future, and they show up strong, whether it’s races at Dover, at Pocono. New Hampshire in a month here is going to look really strong. Every single weekend that we have a NASCAR race in the northeast has performed well, and would love to be up there in the future as well.

For Ben, we saw with St. Pete here the NASCAR Truck Series and INDYCAR, are more partnerships with INDYCAR something NASCAR is actively pursuing and you’d like to see more of in the future?

BEN KENNEDY: Yeah, potentially. We’re going to collaborate with them on the St. Pete race next year, and the good news is we have such a good relationship with Doug, with Bud, with Roger, the entire team over at INDYCAR, and there are a lot of synergies as well, with them having FOX as a broadcast partner, we have FOX for the first part of our season. There are a lot of natural opportunities for us to work closer together, in particular on some of those races in the season.

Something that we’ll continue to explore with them. I think St. Pete next year will be a good kind of case study for us. We’ve had examples of it, of racing at Indianapolis in the past, and even though we didn’t have as big of a presence there, INDYCAR going to Iowa for a number of years, they came and raced at Richmond for a handful of years as well.

Really important for us to continue to have the relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more opportunities for us to work closer together with them.

In regards to Rockingham, how did that play into the decision to go back there since it went up for sale so close after the race was held there? And how did that figure into the schedule? Did it slow down the schedule being formed, or is there still a concern there about how the new owner might be with Rockingham?

JUSAN HAMILTON: I’m happy to jump in on that. Obviously Rockingham performed great for us last year, as we mentioned earlier, and it falls at a unique time in our schedule where Cup is off and we can highlight those two series. Our partner is Track Enterprises and that was the same last year and it’ll be the same this year. Each venue has a lot of different unique considerations that have to come into play. Certainly with our partner and promoter being Track Enterprises, that’s something that they’ll work through. I don’t think there’s any news to report there at this point, so we’re set for next year, and we should be in a really good spot to host both the O’Reilly Auto Parts and Craftsman Truck Series at Rockingham again and hopefully have that same level of excitement and fan turnout that we had in year one.

Did the owner then put it up for sale, who owns the night clubs in Raleigh and all, has he changed hands, and is it Track Enterprises that acquired it?

JUSAN HAMILTON: Track Enterprises is our partner, so you look at it, you could say it’s a three-way relationship. We work directly with Track Enterprises and then Track Enterprises has an agreement with the owner of the venue.