For 2026, NASA is pleased to announce it will be hosting its National Championships event Sept. 24-27 at Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Fla.
NASA was the first amateur racing organization to break new ground with the idea of moving its Championships event from year to year, and it has chosen Sebring International Raceway as the site of its 20th annual event.
“We held our Championships event at Sebring in 2017, and it was a huge success. Our drivers love Sebring, so we are thrilled to return to the track for 2026,” said NASA CEO, Jeremy Croiset. “Racing at Sebring is like racing through the halls of history among the greatest names in all of sports car racing. There is no other track like it, with its long, fast straightaways, its famously bumpy Turn 17 and plenty of opportunities for passing. That is what makes Sebring such a great venue for NASA Championships racing.”
The first race at Sebring in 1950 was the brainchild of aeronautical engineer Alec Ullman, a sports car fan who felt the runways of the former Army Air Force training base for B-17 bomber pilots could work for auto racing. That event, the Sam Collier 6-Hour Memorial race held Dec. 31, was the first sports car endurance race staged in the United States.
In 1952, Ullman got the bright idea to put on longer, European-style endurance races, and a legendary series of events got underway. The 12 Hours of Sebring has been a “bucket list” event since its inception and has seen some of the best road-course competition in the nation, including epic battles between Porsche and Ferrari that carried on when the marques returned to the European continent to contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Today the 12 Hours of Sebring is still a major event on the professional motorsports calendar and the infield parties in Green Park during the event are the stuff of legend. The 2026 NASA Championships will add to the rich history of championship sports car racing at Sebring.
“All of us at Sebring International Raceway and the SEVEN Sebring Hotel welcome NASA for its 2026 national event,” said Sebring International Raceway President and General Manager Wayne Estes. “NASA’s regional program, headed by Jim Vandervliet, is one of our favorite regular groups of visitors, and our past experience with the national organization is equally professional.”
