June’s NASCAR weekend drew fewer spectators than organizers had projected on all three days, though there is interest for its return in 2027. “It’d be utterly disastrous and unsafe,” City Manager Tina Friend said during the July 21 City Council meeting. The final decision is not the city’s, and will be made by the Navy and NASCAR, which has expressed interest in returning in 2027. Friend said that organizers had expected 20,000 attendees on Friday, June 19; 45,000 on Saturday, June 20; and 50,000 on Sunday, June 21. “If you especially think about NASCAR happening and then two weeks later, Fourth of July, we were really stretched,” she said.