With NASCAR fresh off the race weekend in Mexico City, questions are already circulating about the next events. However, NASCAR is not yet committing to a return in 2026.
Ben Kennedy, NASCAR EVP, chief venue and racing innovation officer, met with media members after Shane van Gisbergen's dominant win at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. He spoke highly of the fan reception and expressed gratitude to everyone that pulled off this herculean effort.
Yet, he didn't immediately double down and say that the Xfinity and Cup Series teams will return despite having a multi-year agreement with an option to extend.
"We're very hopeful to be back here in the future," Kennedy said. "...We're very bold about continuing to bring our NASCAR Cup Series internationally. Mexico is a great place to do it. This weekend is a great example of it."
One key detail that Kennedy mentioned was that NASCAR wants this event to be a mainstay on the schedule, so it seems more likely than not that Cup and Xfinity teams will take on Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez again at some point.
What keeps NASCAR from committing to a Mexico City trip in 2026? According to Kennedy, there are many variables to examine.
The economics of the event will certainly play a factor. After all, NASCAR chartered airplanes for industry members to make the trip to Mexico City. More than 100 team haulers crossed the border after traveling from Michigan and Charlotte, respectively.
NASCAR also had a bubble in place featuring designated hotels and shuttles that traveled back and forth to the race track. This was not a cheap trip for the industry. Was it worth it? From a fan attendance perspective, the answer leans more toward the positive.
According to Kennedy, NASCAR was happy with the number of fans who attended, even though he did not have any attendance numbers to share. He also pointed to the number of new fans who got to experience two of the national NASCAR series for the first time.
Kennedy said that 90% of fans in attendance were from Mexico, but only 44% were from Mexico City itself. The rest traveled in for the race. As The Athletic's Jeff Gluck noted on "The Teardown" podcast, some traveled 13 hours on a bus just to take part in the festivities.
"For us, this is more of a strategic move as a sport to expand our footprint globally and internationally, and to a massive fan base," Kennedy said. "Just being in a country with 90 million people and over 20 million people in the larger Mexico City metro alone, that in and of itself is a success.
"You guys probably came in and got to drive around town and see the billboards, see all the activations that OCESA did. That is success for us. In my opinion, that carries a lot more weight than the economics or financials of the event. Sure, it's a variable we consider, but strategically it's more important that we focus on those factors as we make those decisions."
NASCAR has the ultimate goal of expanding its footprint around the world while building the size of its fanbase. Taking the Cup Series to Mexico City for the first time was a big part of this process. This is also why NASCAR continues to look at Canada and Brazil as future destinations.
Yet as Kennedy noted, international events are not necessarily in NASCAR's wheelhouse. They are far more comfortable putting on events inside the United States. OCESA, a Mexican entertainment company, helped make this process smoother.
If NASCAR does return to Mexico City next season or at another point in the future, the expectation is that it will be a more streamlined process. The experience gained this past weekend, as well as the feedback from industry members, will only allow NASCAR to make the necessary adjustments so that future trips just go more smoothly.
"We're going to do a post-mortem on our side around the event. We're going to collaborate with the teams," Kennedy said. "I spoke to Jeff Gordon on the grid. I spoke to Justin Marks a couple times. They all had some really good feedback for us.
"And we're going to get together and put our heads together on, 'Hey, what worked? What will we continue to replicate in the future? And what changes would you like to see?' And put our heads together on, if we do come back, how do we make sure it's as efficient and as effective as we can? Part of that is probably logistics planning. Part of that is probably schedule. And then part of that is just how we think about planning and programming out this weekend as well."