The 2026 NASCAR season will see the return of the “Chase” style championship format. NASCAR made the announcement Monday, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is interested to see how the new format changes teams’ strategy during races.
Earnhardt raced full-time for the entirety of the original Chase. He knows there will be drivers prioritizing points over doing everything they can to win.
“Honestly, I don’t know what we’re gonna see in some scenarios,” Earnhardt said on his Dale Jr. Download podcast. “… The stage points will still be important, we know that guys will strategize sometimes to actually take away their chances of winning the race to gain more stage points, we’ve seen guys do that.
“The green flag will drop, they’ll start racing and the guy will go, ‘Our f*cking car ain’t good enough today but if I do this and this, I can get these stage points, and we’ll just see where we end up in the final stage and we’ve got the third most points even though we finished eighth.’ So, they’ll do that, we know they will.”
NASCAR kills win-and-in, increases importance on winning
That being said, NASCAR is placing more importance on winning under the new format. NASCAR will increase points for race wins from 40 to 55, to ensure victories still carry significant weight, while the regular season points leader will enter the Chase with a 25-point advantage.
The win-and-in element of the previous format is gone. Given the points increase for winning, Earnhardt still believes you’ll see drivers realizing how important it is to get to Victory Lane.
“Now, since we’ve added some more points to winning, that becomes more important,” Earnhardt said. “You’re gonna see people still do a little bit of stage racing but less because winning, points wise, means so much. When these guys start to realize how important it is to be in one of the top five seeds, when they realize the advantage of being a top two seed, they’re gonna have to get points, points, points all year long. That’s winning races, that’s running in the top three.”