Word on the street (heh) is that NASCAR’s next street race will be in San Diego starting in 2026. While a specific location has not been confirmed since the deal was only just finalized recently according to a Thursday report from RACER, the magazine as well as The San Diego Union-Tribune noted it could be either downtown or the island of Coronado.

If Coronado is the chosen site, it’ll be a place Sheldon Creed is more than familiar with. Besides being the Xfinity Series regular’s home race, he scored a podium finish there with the Stadium Super Trucks.

Situated on the San Diego Bay, Coronado is an island resort city and the site of Naval Air Station North Island. NAS North Island is a United States Navy air base where many aircraft carriers are stationed. Its proximity to San Diego and the wide airfield make it a popular stop for the USO and other events in the area. One of them was the Coronado Speed Festival, which ran from 1997 to 2016 (save for 2001 being called off due to 9/11).

The Coronado Speed Festival, initially known as the Chrysler Jeep Classic Speed Festival, was a vintage car meet and race weekend organized by the San Diego Fleet Week Foundation on the airfield tarmac. Held each fall, it was originally designed to help raise funds for the Holiday Bowl game before becoming one of the foundation’s major events in the buildup to the beloved Fleet Week. Parts of the base were also accessible to fans as an open house.

A variety of vehicles and classes were involved such as open-wheelers and Trans-Am cars under the watch of the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association. Old NASCAR stock cars had races as well.

In a way, the festival was considered a revival of the Torrey Pines Road Races from the 1950s, which was also held on a military installation in San Diego (the World War II-era Camp Callan). Unlike Torrey Pines, the Speed Festival was on an active base.

In 2014, SST was invited to Coronado as part of a tripleheader weekend in Southern California. After racing at the Sand Sports Super Show in Costa Mesa on September 19 and 20, the trucks went to North Island for the Coronado Speed Festival on the 21st.

Of course, the race used the same track as the vintage cars along Runway 36. The airstrip, which is combined with Runway 18, served as the frontstretch and where the lap began.

A righthand hairpin for Turn 1 was followed by a 90-degree left turn, taking drivers across the width of the runway. It then went through one of the adjacent roads, where barrel chicanes were placed to create Turn 4. A pair of right turns led back onto the start of Runway 36, where a series of 90° corners crossed the runway’s breadth once more and back onto the runway. For SST, ramps were placed along the final two straightaways.

The frontstretch in particular was a hot point for passing due to the speed that the trucks picked up after the jump and going into the first turn. In total, the track spanned 1.7 miles.

EJ Viso won the heat race ahead of Creed and Scotty Steele. After that, eventual series champion Robby Gordon claimed the feature with Creed and Keegan Kincaid right behind.

Creed, then a 16-year-old hotshot just a few days away from turning 17 and still a ways to go before becoming a NASCAR Truck Series champion, showed off afterward by bicyling his truck. An SST press release about the race focused on Creed’s post-race celebration:

Robby Gordon captured the Formula Off-Road Presented by TRAXXAS race at the Coronado Speed Festival on the historic Naval Air Station North Island Sunday in front of a full house of military personnel and local San Diego area race enthusiasts. The crowd included thousands of new Stadium Super Truck (SST) series fans who witnessed one of the most amazing feats possible in a race car at the conclusion of the second race.

EJ Viso held off Sheldon Creed from nearby Alpine, Calif. in heat race competition, with Arizona’s Scotty Steele taking third. In the SST final, Creed again finished second with fellow-TRAXXAS driver Keegan Kincaid finishing third the night after winning his first SST race in Orange County.

The TRAXXAS SST race on the massive Navy Base across the Glorietta Bay from downtown San Diego, marked the third consecutive day the trucks raced in Southern California, with the first two races coming at Orange County’s Sand Sports Super Show Sept. 19–20.

Gordon and Kincaid shared top honors in Orange County. The overall weekend win went to Gordon, followed by Kincaid and Steele.

Following the second race at the Coronado Speed Festival, 16-year-old Creed, who’s Alpine home is only 30 miles from the Navy base, hoisted his TRAXXAS SST truck onto its right two tires and bicycled his truck around the 1.7-mile, 13-turn race course to the delight of the crowd. Never once did Creed let his left side tires down to the ground as fans clapped and yelled during the nearly five minute slow lap around the circuit.

Despite the great racing the trucks produced on the converted airport runway, Creed all but stole the show with his amazing effort. Almost unbelievably, his Toyo Tires kept their grip and maintained their integrity as Creed rode on the sidewalls of his Toyos.

SST did not return for 2015 and 2016.

The 2017 event was canceled officially because the runway and surrounding facilities needed repairs, and has not returned since. The foundation had also been struggling financially prior to its demise, with a report finding much of its deficit was due to Coronado Speed Festival.

Other venues to have hosted NASCAR and SST include Bristol Motor Speedway, Circuit of the Americas, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Portland International Raceway, Road America, Texas Motor Speedway, and Watkins Glen International. Like Coronado if selected, COTA, Portland, and Los Angeles welcomed SST before NASCAR. Foro Sol (now Estadio GNP Seguros) could be included here too since the ballpark—which had the trucks as part of the 2019 Race of Champions—is part of the larger Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

Featured image credit: Stadium Super Trucks