NASCAR San Diego track guide: Breaking down Qualcomm Circuit

The first NASCAR race on an active military base will also be on one of the longest tracks in the sport’s history. What is officially called Qualcomm Circuit spans 5.47 kilometres (3.4 miles) with 19 turns around Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego.

For comparison, the next longest road courses currently on the NASCAR schedule are Watkins Glen at 3.943 kilometres followed by Circuit of the Americas at 3.743 km. COTA is technically longer because the full course spans 5.513 km, but NASCAR switched to the shorter layout in 2025 because cautions took too long as everyone had to complete the entire track.

“All time, San Diego clocks in as the fourth longest track in NASCAR history behind the 6.711-km Daytona Beach and Road Course, Road America (6.515 km), and Daytona International Speedway’s infield road circuit (5.745 km).

The track was released on iRacing last Tuesday, ten days before the Craftsman Truck Series races there first with the Navy 250. The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will compete on Saturday, 20 June, with the United Rentals Driven to Serve 250, followed by the Cup Series‘ Anduril 250 Race the Base on Sunday, 21 June.

The design has been compared to the Chicago Street Course, both being street circuits with a decent amount of 90-degree turns. However, Chicago had more of such corners and is much more confined than San Diego. With its flowing sections and length, some drivers think Coronado might be the most challenging track they’ve faced in a long time.

“I think it will be the hardest road race that anybody in this garage has ever run, just from the standpoint that there are so many corners. We have labelled 16, but if we labelled like some other tracks, it would probably come out to 30,” Chris Buescher opined. “It’s going be very difficult. It’s very narrow in places, it’s extremely wide in others to the point where you’re almost trying to figure out where in the world you should be in that 100-feet of race track to set up for a corner.

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“Trying to figure out what our spotters are going to be able to see and what we’re going to be left on our own to do. Everybody in this room knows that’s dangerous if you leave it up to the steering wheel holders to decide if we’re clear or not, but it’s going to be rough in a lot of places. I’ve laughed about it.

“It’s fitting to be near aircraft carriers. We’re going to be in the air quite a bit, and I think that it’s rough in a lot of ways. It’s going to be tricky. It’s going to be very difficult to go in there and figure out how to get that thing right from the get-go.”

So what exactly does this track offer?

Qualcomm Circuit track stats

Analysing Qualcomm Circuit’s layout and landmarks

The lap begins with a very long straightaway through the Ellyson Start/Finish Line. Its namesake Commander Theodore G. Ellyson was the first Naval Aviator, helping to develop the United States Navy’s aerial branch prior to and following the First World War. Ellyson and his fellow aviators were trained in flight at North Island, which became a Naval Air Station in 1917. For this reason, NAS North Island is regarded as the “Birthplace of Naval Aviation”.

There is a bit of a rise into the first turn, a sweeping right-hander that drops downhill towards Turn 2. This stretch goes the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Southwest building, into a 90° left turn. Known as NAVFAC for short, the command oversees the construction of infrastructure for the Navy. The Naval Construction Battalions, or famed “Seabees”, go hand-in-hand with NAVFAC.

The left-hander leads down a road that goes by the brown Andrew Mills Hall barracks. AMH’s namesake was on the USS Yorktown when it was attacked at the Battle of Midway; Mills cracked open a safe with vital documents and safely extracted them from the ship before its sinking. Regarded as an icon for Black sailors, Mills lived to see the new building be christened after him in 2017 before passing away the following year at the age of 103. Spotters will be located on the roof of the barracks.

Another 90° left then takes cars into a sweeping right and down a long straightaway. The San Diego Bay looms on the passenger’s side, where NASCAR hopes to have aircraft carriers like the USS Carl Vinson stationed to create a Turn 5 called Carrier Corner. On the opposite side of the track are storage facilities, the printing centre run by the Defense Logistics Agency, and Building 334 where Amphibious Construction Battalion 1 is located.

After completing Carrier Corner, drivers will head down the road past the Southwest Regional Apprentice Program (SWRAP) campus, where civilian students undergo four years of training to become machinists, welders, and electricians on Navy ships. The school buildings are on the right side while the left has school facilities like football and softball fields, tennis courts, a gymnasium, and a hobby shop.

This leads into a tight and technical section and Turns 8 and 9 nicknamed the Coronado Chicane, going towards the aircraft hangars. Helicopter Sea Combat Squadrons 3 and 21 are based here, as well as a training school for gas system electricians. Double-decker buses with their top seats removed will be situated by Turn 8 as another spotter’s nest. This section opens back up with a wider course towards the airfield, passing through the esses on active tarmac and taxiways.

Runway Road awaits in Turn 14, nicknamed such because it straddles the north end of Runway 36. The runway is typically combined with Runway 18 as part of Halsey Field. The track becomes more open from here before slowing into a final chicane back onto the frontstretch.

To ensure the racing surface is safe for cars, NASCAR welded over 150 valves and manhole covers on the ground to smooth them over. The rail tracks at Carrier Corner, which are used to bring cranes to and from the docks, also have pavement added as does the final chicane.

“Railroad tracks, that’s a new one to go over. I haven’t had that yet,” Joey Logano remarked. “That’s a new one for me, so it will be like the Fast & Furious out there. It will be kind of cool and I’m excited.”

Comparing with Coronado’s other race track

Qualcomm Circuit is technically not the first race track on the naval base. The Coronado Speed Festival was a vintage car meet run from 1997 to 2016 and organised by the San Diego Fleet Week Foundation. Initially meant to raise funds for the Holiday Bowl college gridiron football game, it eventually became part of the build-up to the city’s Fleet Week, a week-long celebration of the Navy and Marines wherein ships are docked so that civilians can tour them.

The Coronado Speed Festival took place on the southern tip of Runway 36 and surrounding entryways. Being an event for retro vehicles meant physicality was obviously to be avoided while still showcasing their power, which an airfield tarmac certainly provided.

The course spanned 2.735 kilometres (1.7 mi) with nine corners. The track started along Runway 36 before taking a sharp right-hand hairpin, then a 90° left turn across the width of the runway and onto one of the adjacent taxiways. Cars then travelled along the taxiway, with a chicane in between to form Turn 4, until they reached the mouth of Runway 36.

Turns 7, 8, and 9 were all 90-degree lefts with straightaways before reaching the finish. When the Stadium Super Trucks raced at the festival in 2014, jumps were installed along the final two straights.

The CSF was cancelled in 2017 because the runway needed repairs and the Fleet Week Foundation was struggling financially.

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