NASCAR’s Championship Weekend returns to Homestead-Miami Speedway next year, marking the 19th time in the last 25 years the track has crowned the sport’s drivers in Cup, Xfinity and the Craftsman Truck Series.
The track’s first NASCAR race was in 1995 and its first Cup race took place in 1999. Homestead hosted NASCAR’s Championship Weekend from 2002-19.
NBC Sports, which has broadcast the Cup playoffs and championship race since 2015, will do so through 2031.
Since it’s debut, Homestead has been the site of several memorable moments.
Here are some of those moments:
1995 — Dale Jarrett wins the first NASCAR race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, taking the checkered flag in the Xfinity race. Tim Fedewa, the spotter for Ryan Blaney these days in the Cup Series, finished second. The race featured three drivers who later became NASCAR officials: Elton Sawyer (12th), Chad Little (26th) and David Green (28th).
1999 — Dale Jarrett finished fifth at Homestead, in a race won by Tony Stewart, to clinch the championship with one race left in the season. Dale and Ned Jarrett became only the second father-son combination at the time to win Cup championships, joining Lee and Richard Petty. The Elliotts joined the list when Chase won the 2020 title to match his father Bill’s crown in 1988. Said Jeff Burton of Dale Jarrett winning the title: “The guy that deserved to win the championship and the team that deserved to win the championship this year locked it up.’’
2004 — The first year of the Chase, what later would be called the playoffs, saw Kurt Busch beat Jimmie Johnson by eight points for the championship. A dramatic moment happened when Busch brought out the caution on Lap 94 after his right front tire came off just as he entered pit road. Busch likely would have fallen a lap down with a green-flag stop but the wheel rolled on to the track, leading to a caution. Busch stayed on the lead lap and went on to finish fifth to win the championship.
2010 — Jimmie Johnson won his fifth consecutive Cup championship, clinching the title by finishing second to race winner Carl Edwards.
2011 — Tony Stewart won to claim the championship via a tiebreaker on Carl Edwards, who finished second. The victory was the fifth in 10 Chase races that season for Stewart, who livened the weekend with a few spicy exchanges with Edwards at a media session a few days ahead of the race.
2014 — Chase Elliott became the youngest Xfinity Series champion at age 18 years, 11 months and 18 days when he claimed the title at Homestead with a 17th-place finish.
2016 — Jimmie Johnson won his seventh championship, tying Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for most in the series. The title race changed when Carl Edwards wrecked after blocking Joey Logano on a restart 10 laps from the scheduled distance. That helped open the way for Johnson to win the race and claim the title.
2018 — Joey Logano wins the first of his three Cup championships by passing Martin Truex Jr. for the lead with 12 laps to go. It came three weeks after Logano bumped Truex out of the lead to win at Martinsville to earn a spot in the title race. Truex said after that race: “He may have won the battle, but he ain’t winning the damn war.”
2019 — Kyle Busch wins his second championship in a race that saw title contender Martin Truex Jr. felled by a pit road gaffe when his team put the left front and right front tires on the wrong side and had to pit again to correct the mistake. Later, Denny Hamlin’s crew put a large piece of tape on the front grille that caused the engine to overheat and sent Hamlin back to pit road to have the tape removed.
2024 — Tyler Reddick goes from third to first on the last lap to win and advance to the championship race. The race featured a track-record 33 lead changes. There were three different leaders over the final three laps of the race. Team co-owner Michael Jordan celebrated by lifting Tyler Reddick in a bearhug and yelled “Yeah, baby! Yeah!” Christopher Bell, who finished fourth and watched the lead change in those final laps, said afterward of Homestead: “This place is awesome. It leads to some amazing races.”
