After months of speculation, NASCAR fans finally know how he sport will crown its champions.
NASCAR announces a return to “The Chase”, a ten-race, non-elimination style playoff format previously utilized by the series in years past.
Unlike earlier versions of “The Chase”, which featured only 10 or 12 drivers, the Cup Series will continue to include 16 competitors in the title fight.
The catch? NASCAR will determine playoff berths strictly by points, eliminating the ‘win-and-in’ system.
Though ‘win-and-in system is gone, drivers still have good incentive to win. A victory now earns a driver 55 points as opposed to 40 points.
“The Chase” will feature a points reset ahead of it’s first race. The driver highest in points heading into the first event at Darlington Raceway will begin the playoffs with 2100 points, a 25-point advantage ahead of their competitors.
NASCAR announces the return of “The Chase”.
A 10-race championship format.
Win and in is gone.Here is how the points will reset ahead of the playoffs: pic.twitter.com/VwyztZjNdw
— Taylor Kitchen (@_TaylorKitchen_) January 12, 2026
So, no ‘win-and-in, no eliminations – a compromise between NASCAR’s past and present championship formats combined into one. It’s something Dale Earnhardt Jr. says is as close as you can get to a 36-race format without going all the way.
“I’m a fan of the sport, and now I’m compelled to plug in every single week because I know there’s a long form objective for my driver to accomplish to be able to give himself the opportunity to win the championship,” Earnhardt said. “So even though my driver may have success early on in the season, it does not assure him success in the postseason. So with the way that they’re going to stack the bonus points and everything else, it’s critical that these drivers have success every single week. Every single race, every single lap will have more importance. I think it’s fun for the drivers to have a more clear objective for how to get to the championship and easier for our fans to follow.”
From the perspective of a driver who will race in this format full-time, 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Ryan Blaney is eager to embrace the format change.
“I sit back, and I look at this new format, and sometimes we all get grief about over aggressiveness and things like that, and sometimes you get put in these situations where it’s a win and move on type scenario,” he said. “I think it’s going to clean up a lot of the racing side of it and get back to the purity side of it to where it is a little bit more of not brash, a little bit more of the beautiful art form that I grew up loving.”
Getting back to the “purity” side of racing is just what NASCAR needs.
For the past few seasons, the sport has shifted the focus away from racing. Lawsuits, gimmicks, debates over championship worthiness, and other distractions have dominated the conversation. For the health of the sport, everyone knew the narrative had to change.
Now, with a format that better balances race wins and overall consistency, the focus steer back to racing and away from distractions.
“We were talking in the past about, if you go to Bristol, Ryan Blaney wins the race. Chase Briscoe – I’m making it up here – finishes 18th but makes the cutoff. The story was all about the 18th-place finisher instead of the winner. Long term that wasn’t good for us,” explained NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell in a hypothetical scenario. “We wanted to build heroes. It’s hard to win these races. It’s hard to be in the top 10. Really important for us to get back to these storylines. We think the fans will come with us. We’ve got work to do on this. It’s not lost on any one of us at NASCAR. We have talented people who are hungry to get back to where we were. We’re going to work our asses off for the industry to deliver to our race fans.”
Of course, a decision like this is much more complex than many realize. This is something NASCAR legend Mark Martin explained during Monday’s press conference.
“Steve (O’Donnell) won’t say it, but there are contracts, team contracts with sponsors,” explained Martin. “It’s a lot more complicated than our fans really realize. It’s very complicated.We’re really lucky to have gotten what we’ve got here. This is a great compromise, in my eyes. And the jump from 10 to 36 is not nearly as unlikely as from Playoffs to 36. So you never know what happens in the future. He didn’t say that. I did, though.”
Undoubtedly, no decision can make all fans happy. For anyone active on social media, they know there was a heavy push for a 36-race championship. No playoffs, no ‘win and in’, no stages, just pure racing. Leading these discussions was legendary NASCAR driver Mark Martin. Though the sport isn’t returning to it’s purest form, his efforts helped the sport find common ground.
“The fans were yelling at me we want full season points. So I yelled even louder and almost got thrown out, as Steve said,” said Martin. “I think that this is the most perfect compromise that you could ever ask for. It’s going to require our 2026 champion to be lightning fast and incredibly consistent, and that’s what we can all get behind. So I’m really excited. I think it’s fantastic. I would just appeal to the race fans, all the race fans, but especially the classic fans who say to me, I don’t watch anymore. I say we need you. Come on back. We’re headed in the right direction. Come back and join with us, and we’ll keep making progress.”
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (previously the NASCAR Xfinity Series) and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will also utilize “The Chase” starting this season and beyond.
NASCAR’s second-tiered series will have a nine-race playoff with twelve drivers. Meanwhile the Truck Series will include 10 drivers over seven races.
Fans will get their first look at the new format in action starting February 13th through February 15th at Daytona International Speedway.
