I haven’t known how to keep score of NASCAR points since 2003. Not that I was opposed to theim trying different things. Now we have a new system for the foreseeable future.
Here’s the important parts of the NASCAR.com article.
fter more than a decade with an elimination-style playoff system, NASCAR’s championship format has busted the bracket and cut to The Chase.
NASCAR will return to a postseason Chase in all three national series in 2026, implementing a championship procedure that rewards full-season consistency and introducing a new points model that stokes the emphasis on race wins.
The Chase 101: How NASCAR’s new championship format worksThe format, announced Monday afternoon at the NASCAR Productions Facility, closes the elimination era and the one-race championship system that had been in place since 2014 for the Cup Series and since 2016 for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series. The new method for deciding those three championships takes a page from stock-car racing’s history and its first postseason system, but with modifications that chart its course for the future.
RELATED: 2026 Cup Series schedule | 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts schedule | 2026 Craftsman Truck Series schedule
“The biggest thing was looking at who we wanted to be as a sport going forward, and that included really a focus on our core fan base and who had been with us for a long, long time and gotten the sport to where it was. So we wanted our future format to reflect that,” NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell said. “A lot of things you’re going to see and how we talked to the fans, from an overall NASCAR standpoint, was going to really embrace that hardcore fan, and so we felt like the format needed to absolutely reflect that.”
The new format uses the framework of the system that was in place from 2004-2013 in the Cup Series, but with several key enhancements.
- The field sizes for The Chase in each series remain the same — the top 16 drivers in the Cup Series, 12 in O’Reilly and 10 in Trucks — but all drivers qualify based on regular-season points. The “win-and-you’re-in” rule that provided regular-season winners with automatic playoff berths is no more.
- Race winners now collect 55 points, a 15-point increase over the previous points system. Points awards for all other positions and stage results remain the same, but bankable playoff points are no longer part of the format.
- Points will be reset for each series’ Chase field with a 25-point premium awarded to the regular-season champion. Top seeds will start The Chase with 2,100 points, 2,075 for the second seed and 2,065 for the third, with a five-point drop for each seed after.
- The Cup Series’ Chase spans the final 10 races of the season, with nine Chase races for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and seven in the Craftsman Truck Series.
- The driver with the most points at the end of the season will be the series champion.
More here if you want to dig deep. I may want to later.