Clash Moves from Miami to Coastal Mississippi
Clash Endurance, the event company owned by Bill Christy with close ties to NASCAR (Christy is married to Lesa France Kennedy, the executive vice-chair of NASCAR), will be moving its Miami race to a new venue in Coastal Mississippi. There’s no speedway attached to this race – it will start and finish in Gulfport, with the bike course taking the athletes towards Biloxi. Both cities will serve as options for athletes to stay, offering lots of accommodation, entertainment and dining choices.
According to today’s release from Clash, the new venue is a “more centralized location” for Clash’s spring triathlon offering. In addition to its staple of Florida competitors, the event should draw from Texas’ vibrant triathlon community. While there certainly were lots of upsides to the Homestead-Miami Speedway site, it is situated roughly an hour (further south) from Miami, making it a long haul destination even for many Floridians.
Photos: Courtesy Clash/ Visit Mississippi
The inaugural event will take place from March 27 to 29, 2026 and will become the new home for the USA Triathlon Collegiate Club National Championship. While there’s no official word on the Continental Cup event that was also part of the Miami weekend over the past couple of years, it is expected that the event will also include that race. In addition to the collegiate and (likely) draft-legal Americas Cup event, age group athletes will have the opportunity to compete in sprint and “Daytona-distance” (one-mile swim, 35-mile bike and nine-mile run) races, along with open water swim, aqua bike and duathlon events.
The Collegiate Club National Championship has been going on for more than 30 years – it started at the Wildflower Triathlon as an unofficial championship in the early 90s and was taken over USA Triathlon in 2002. Over 100 clubs compete in the event that includes an Olympic-distance race, a draft-legal sprint and a mixed relay.
“We are thrilled to bring the 2026 USA Triathlon Collegiate Club National Championships to Coastal Mississippi in partnership with CLASH Endurance,” said said Victoria Brumfield , USA Triathlon CEO. “This collaboration combines CLASH’s spirited event culture with USAT’s commitment to collegiate development and we can’t wait to see student athletes and fans embrace the excitement, community and competition against the backdrop of Mississippi’s scenic coast.”
Course and Venue
The swim will take place in the Gulf of America in a protected area near the Gulfport Municipal Marina. Water temperatures at that time of year can range between 62 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The bike course will follow the coast towards Biloxi, with the run winding through the neighborhoods in Gulfport.
Registration for the new event is open.
Tags:
Clash EnduranceClash MiamiUSA Triathlon Collegiate Club National ChampionshipNotable Replies
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I guess that solves why Miami wasn’t being announced as the Collegiate Nats location for next year. Is more “centrally located” for our program (Cincinnati area)…12 hrs vs 18 hours.
That’s going to be a huge culture shock to ppl who were used to Miami. Hopefully it becomes a good race venue for them.
I expect most people were flying into Miami anyway, Gulfport is certainly “more centralized” I’m not sure how much more convenient it is though
If the main attraction is the collegiate kids, waaay more kids drive to these locations than fly. West coast schools unfortunately basically have a flight any location beyond west coast.
Gulfport ain’t that bad for a weekend. I used to have to be down there 4x/yr when I was still in public accounting over a decade ago, rather than fly home on weekends I’d either fly my now wife or buddies in. Will be good post race fun for the over 21 college kids, no doubt
Interesting development, I hope it has a good turnout.I live in central Mississippi but don’t do tri anymore. I assume one of the casinos down there will be a sponsor.
Yeah, looks like a casino is one of the (many) sponsors of the half marathon there, which is put on by FreshJunkie Racing (they’re good people).
Mississippi Gulf Coast marathon and half marathon in December. Great race running along the beach and ends up in the baseball stadium. I’ve actually won it in the past. Only downside is it’s a point to point and more often than not into a headwind.
It should be a good turnout…I think there is a bit of sticker shock, because we assumed it was going to stay in Miami. Hell Clash’s own website still has “register today” for Clash Miami in 2026 as of a few hours ago. But I think anytime you can get in that southern state gulf region, your going to have pretty good numbers because even saving people 2-4 hours makes a huge difference when your talking about college kids ($$$$ is biggest issue). Again west coast schools are flying regardless of southern US location, but I think I saw that like 60% of the college club programs are “east coast” located. West coast still gets their due (past 10 years, it’s been west coast 3 times).
I’ve done Challenge Daytona before and will be back again this year. I get that the NASCAR calendar takes priority, but it’s honestly a shame; the scheduling alone is what’s holding these two events back from reaching their full potential!
Daytona in early December is dead quiet and borderline cold. Period. 50s in the morning, mid-60s water, not exactly “Florida fun.” Meanwhile, Miami in late March or April is borderline brutal to run on that track; it’s just hot for many.
If they flipped the dates, it would make way more sense:
Daytona in March: perfect temps, wetsuit-legal, fast racing.
Miami in December: warm, but not scorching — an ideal late-season race when most of us want one more hit before the holidays.
I’d love to drive down to Miami in December for a relaxed end-of-year race, then kick the season off at Daytona in spring. The venues are awesome; it’s just the calendar that kills their potential. Coastal Mississippi just doesn’t have the same pull once you lose the track element, you lose the unique identity that made Daytona and Miami special in the first place.
RD here. We are very excited about this development and have been hard at work to make it a reality! The support from the State of Mississippi has been great (see below). This new more central location cuts off about 6hrs off the drive for most athletes…Florida is long. Ex: Both Michigan AND Michigan State drove to Miami last year. We’re hopeful this helps to grow collegiate athlete numbers. It is paramount to the future of our sport that they “get the bug” and develop into lifelong triathletes. I’ll try to answer any questions here and I know that this will also be a great age grouper destination as well! Great hotels/casinos, plenty of family activities (new Mississippi Aquarium, fishing charters, dolphin watching tours, etc.) and nice white sand beaches.
Thanks for your continued support of Clash Daytona! We’re looking forward to hosting you this December. Yes, March would be amazing to race in Daytona but no chance. The speedway is in full swing from Jan-May. These venues are monetizable assets and are not used only 2x per year for NASCAR. Keep in mind, they host 6-8 events per year with OVER 200,000 attendees and those buildouts take over a week before they open doors for those events…then load-out take a few days too.
Jan - teams testing cars, prototypes, drivers, pit crews. Then leads into Road of the 24 before the IMSA Rolex 24hr race.
Feb - Daytona 1/2 Marathon + 5k (powered by Clash Endurance)
Speedweeks, The Duel, etc. all leading into the Daytona 500
Mar - Supercross, Bikeweek, Daytona 200 (motos), Amaerican Flat Track, then Spring ‘Rod Run. So booked the entire month.
April - Jeep Beach (build out start early April) is the largest Jeep festival in the world with over 200,000 attendees
May - Welcome to Rockville, 4 day concert festival, multiple stages. Previous headliners: Foo Fighters, Guns n Roses, Metallica, etc.