{"id":399460,"date":"2026-01-10T01:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/399460\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T01:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:02:11","slug":"nascar-reveals-when-it-will-unveil-championship-format-for-2026-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/399460\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR reveals when it will unveil championship format for 2026 and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long-awaited NASCAR<\/a> championship format will soon be known. The sport announced Thursday that it will unveil the new format for 2026 and beyond on Monday.<\/p>\n

The reveal will happen on a live stream on the NASCAR website. The press conference will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET, according to a report from FOX Sports\u2019 Bob Pockrass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So far, there haven\u2019t been many indications which way things are leaning for the championship format. The current championship format has come under some heavy scrutiny in recent years.<\/p>\n

That format features a 10-race, four-round elimination tournament for 16 qualifying drivers. Drivers could qualify by winning a race during the season or finishing in the top 16 in the points standings. In seasons where more than 16 winners existed, a driver with a win could be eliminated based on points.<\/p>\n

While that format led to some compelling results at times, it was panned some by critics. Hall of Fame driver Mark Martin has been front and center among them.<\/p>\n

Mark Martin advocates for full-season format<\/p>\n

As NASCAR prepares to unveil the future of the championship format, one man who will be watching quite closely is Martin. He\u2019s been vocal about what he thinks the driving forces have been behind a 10-race playoff format.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also not a fan of that format. He believes the full length of the season should determine the champion.<\/p>\n

In a podcast appearance on Frontstretch over the summer, Martin accused the team owners of being \u201caddicted to the money.\u201d<\/a> He assailed against the sport\u2019s broadcast partners for not understanding racing and only knowing \u201cstick and ball sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, for the first time, I\u2019ve seen a couple of active drivers hint that they wouldn\u2019t mind seeing that [full-season points format]. You can\u2019t expect them to tell the truth, because that\u2019s how they make their living,\u201d Martin said. \u201cBut everyone that you get your information from is beholden to the TV money. A lot of the fans want to fault NASCAR \u2014 yeah, maybe, but I fault the owners, too. They\u2019re addicted to the money. They wanna see whatever the broadcast partners want.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I haven\u2019t told a lot of the details I know. But the broadcast network is one of those that wants the playoffs. They don\u2019t understand racing. All they know is stick and ball sports. It makes it easy for a broadcaster, it makes it easy for a journalist or anyone that covers the sport \u2014 they have a ready-made talking point every damn race because we have the playoffs, win and you\u2019re in the playoffs \u2014 you\u2019ve got something to talk about. Unfortunately, that\u2019s what they talk about and typically, the winner gets lost. They only focus that he goes into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

What will NASCAR\u2019s new championship format be? We won\u2019t have to wait much longer to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The long-awaited NASCAR championship format will soon be known. The sport announced Thursday that it will unveil the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-399460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}