Since 2002, NASCAR's top three racing series have closed their season with a weekend designed to crown each series' champion, officially known as NASCAR Championship Weekend. From 2002 until 2019, the final race weekend of the season was run at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida. Ford Motor Company was the title sponsor for all three races during this period, and the weekend itself was also known as Ford Championship Weekend. Since 2020, the championship races have been held at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. With the removal of Homestead from the final race weekend, some drivers have stated that the championship races should rotate between tracks every year instead of being held at one particular facility, similar to the Super Bowl.

History

NASCAR decided after the 2001 season to move the final Truck and Cup Series races of the season to the same track so all three series could conclude in the same place in the same weekend. Prior to this, each series ended its season at a different track. The Cup Series had run its final scheduled race at Atlanta Motor Speedway since 1987 (save for a 9/11 related postponement of the fall race at New Hampshire). The Truck Series had always ended its season in the western United States, with Phoenix hosting that event in 2001. The then-Busch Series' finale helped open what was then referred to as the Homestead Motorsports Complex in Florida in 1995, and NASCAR had run its final race there ever since. After each race, an official ceremony is conducted in victory lane where the final points leader in each series is given his championship trophy. In 2016, NASCAR adopted a championship format that is similar in function to one used by the National Hot Rod Association. Over the course of the final races of the season, qualifying drivers are eliminated from championship contention if they are not above a certain threshold following a specific event. Once the field for each series is reduced to four contenders, the Championship Weekend races are then run with the highest finishing driver among the four in each series being crowned champion.

Pre-playoff history

Prior to 2004, when the first Chase for the Nextel Cup was conducted, all three series' championships were decided over the course of the entire season. The driver that was able to accumulate the most points over the course of the season was declared champion. However, the old system had the chance that one driver would be so dominant over the course of the season that he would clinch the championship before the final race; this was especially the case during the era of Cup Series drivers running the full season in the second tier series in addition to the entire Cup schedule, as the championship was clinched six times prior to the finale before the now-Xfinity Series adopted its own playoff format. In the pre-playoff era, there were a total of four occasions where a series points leader entering the race did not end it as champion. The first two occurrences happened during the Ford 200 Truck Series race. In 2003, Brendan Gaughan crashed out of the event late, finished 29th, and fell from first to fourth in the standings while Travis Kvapil won the championship. In 2007, Ron Hornaday Jr. and Mike Skinner were separated by 29 points going into the race, but points leader Skinner had a problem with one of his truck's tires and axles and finished 35th. Hornaday finished seventh and won the title by 54 points. In 2010, 46 points separated first place Denny Hamlin, second place Jimmie Johnson, and third place Kevin Harvick in the Sprint Cup standings. At various times in the Ford 400 each driver held the points lead, but in the end Johnson clinched his fifth consecutive Sprint Cup championship by finishing second in the race. Hamlin fell to second place, 39 points behind Johnson, with his 14th-place finish. Harvick finished 3rd in both the race and the points, 41 points behind Johnson. In 2011, Tony Stewart entered the race three points behind Carl Edwards for the Sprint Cup lead. Stewart won the Ford 400 with Edwards finishing second and the points race ended in a tie. However, due to Stewart holding more victories than Edwards over the course of the season (Stewart's win gave him five while Edwards only won once), Stewart won the tiebreaker and became series champion for a third time.

Television and radio coverage

Current

The Truck Series race is carried by Fox Sports, which has the exclusive rights to air Truck Series events. The race is aired on Fox Sports 1, which has aired the event since 2013; under its previous branding, Speed Channel, it aired the race from 2003 until 2012. The Xfinity Series race, beginning in 2025, will be carried by CW Network per terms of the current contract that gives the network exclusive rights to the series. NBC Sports, under the terms of the current broadcasting contract, has the broadcast rights to the Cup Series race. The race was broadcast by NBC from 2001 through 2006 and again beginning in 2015 when the network returned to televising NASCAR.

Previous

When Championship Weekend began, the Truck Series race was carried by ESPN2 as ESPN retained the rights to the series after losing its NASCAR broadcast rights following the 2000 season. Speed Channel took over all rights beginning in 2003; the network became Fox Sports 1 in August 2013. Since NBC was already contracted to air the Busch and Cup races at Homestead, an agreement that was struck in 1999 prior to the inaugural Pennzoil 400, they continued to carry the races in conjunction with TNT, their broadcast partner. The networks shared coverage of the Busch race (NBC from 2002 to 2004, TNT in 2005 and 2006) while NBC aired the Cup race. In 2007, ESPN returned to covering NASCAR and began carrying their championship weekend events over ESPN, ABC, and ESPN2. The ESPN family of networks actually had two separate contracts with NASCAR at the time; the Busch/Nationwide race aired on ESPN2 as ESPN was the exclusive television rights holder for the series under their contract. The Cup series race was carried by ABC until 2009 and ESPN until the contract ended in 2014 as part of ESPN's rights to the second half of the Cup season.

Race results

As noted above, final races were run at Homestead-Miami Speedway from 2002 until 2019 and at Phoenix Raceway from 2020.

Truck Series

Playoff era

Highest finishing driver among four eligible for championship wins series championship.

Busch/Nationwide/Xfinity Series

Playoff era

Highest finishing driver among eligible drivers for championship wins series championship.

Cup Series

Championship Round era

Highest finishing driver among four eligible for championship wins series championship.