The Cup field rolls into Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday for the Coca-Cola 600 the weekend the country marks its 250th birthday. Charlotte is the patriotic anchor of the NASCAR calendar. The 250th makes the weekend bigger.
Mission 600 — the program that pairs Coca-Cola Racing Family drivers with U.S. Armed Forces units in the weeks before the race — ran for the ninth straight year in 2026. Five stops across three branches of the U.S. military: a Marine Corps base in South Carolina, an Air Force base in North Carolina, and three Army postings — one at Arlington, one at Fort Bragg, and one reached by video bridge to a deployed V Corps unit in Lithuania.
On April 22, Chase Elliott toured the flight line at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, watched an F-35B aerial demonstration, took part in a hands-on inert-ordnance loading demonstration, and climbed into the cockpit of an F-18 simulator. On April 29, Ross Chastain — the defending Coca-Cola 600 winner — laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, the annual tradition the speedway hosts for the previous year's winner. Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks went with him. So did the Coca-Cola partners.
On May 7, Austin Dillon and Tyler Rader trained with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg — SIG Sauer pistols, M4 carbines, an M249 SAW, an M119 Howitzer, the 34-foot jump tower, Apache and Black Hawk simulators. On May 12, Joey Logano connected by video with U.S. Army V Corps' Project Flytrap in Lithuania — roughly the distance of eight Coca-Cola 600s east of here. And on May 14, Daniel Suárez and crew chief Ryan Sparks spent a day at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro: Aircraft Maintenance Qualification Program tour, F-35 and F-22 VR simulators, an EOD robot demonstration, and more than two dozen airmen at the USO center.
"Being on the eve of Memorial Day, it's never lost on us the significance of the Coca-Cola 600 and our opportunity to honor everything that the military does," Charlotte Motor Speedway president and general manager Greg Walter said in the release wrapping the program last week. "The impact we make when we bring these drivers out for Mission 600, it's really special to see how these interactions can reshape their perspective."
Five drivers spoke to it directly.
Austin Dillon, who won the Coca-Cola 600 in 2017: "I think that, with America celebrating its 250th year, the Coke 600 has to land at some of the most patriotic moments for our country. It's so cool to see all the military branches represented at that race. It's America."
Kyle Larson, the 2021 winner: "The Coca-Cola 600 and NASCAR, they always do a great job of honoring the military and I would assume they're going to go above and beyond this year with it being the 250th birthday for America. It's always great, we always love having family members of a fallen hero with us at the racetrack and it definitely makes you want to win even more, that way you can celebrate with them."
Chase Elliott, the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports driver: "The 600 and what Coca-Cola does there always has been represented, in my view, of just NASCAR in general and how they hype it up and having service members at the race and involving them in a lot of pre-race activities — I think have always been done with a lot of class and makes us as drivers really proud to be a part of a weekend like that. Big year, 250 years, which is pretty cool."
Denny Hamlin, the 2022 winner and the man who took the All-Star Race from the pole at Dover yesterday: "We're there to put on a show for the fans and certainly we're out there playing a game, but we definitely spend a lot of time paying our respects to Memorial Day weekend and what it's about, and it's ultimately the families that have paid that ultimate sacrifice, and for us, for 250 years now, this is a big year where certainly our military is going to get a lot of recognition for everything that they've done to create this great country that we live in."
Joey Logano, the No. 22 Team Penske driver: "I think Memorial Day weekend, the 250th anniversary of America, nobody does it better than the Coke 600 and Charlotte Motor Speedway when it comes to saluting our military, thanking our soldiers that fight for us. It is one of the most incredible experiences. It's kind of bone-chilling to see it all. I'm sure this year will be even more, considering the anniversary."
Sunday at 6 p.m. ET, the field will run 600 miles. Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry it. Charlotte is built for this weekend. The 250th makes it bigger.