NASCAR will announce its new championship format tomorrow, and industry executives are predicting a simplified system that shifts closer toward racing norms but without going all the way back to the sport\u2019s old-school points formula. Last week, the sanctioning body posted a media alert that it would announce the new format on Monday afternoon, according to multiple reports, after more than a year of studying the proposition of changing the system that has been in place since 2014. <\/p>\n
For most of its history that began in 1948, NASCAR used a points system with no playoff, with the driver with the most tallied at the end of the year winning the championship, similar to what IndyCar and F1 still use to this day. In 2004, NASCAR introduced a playoff format called the \u201cChase for the Nextel Cup,\u201d where a 26-race regular season was followed by a 10-race postseason. The sport then tweaked the format again in 2014 to where a one-race finale determined the annual champion, something that eventually led to accusations that the system was overly complicated and that NASCAR was artificially seeking out stick-and-ball-type Game 7 moments at the expense of racing legitimacy. <\/p>\n
After acknowledging it was open to changing that format at the end of 2024 following an increasing fan outcry, NASCAR put together an industry committee in 2025 to study the issue ahead of making the change for the 2026 campaign and beyond. The results of that committee\u2019s work will be announced Monday at 3:30pm ET via a live stream on NASCAR\u2019s digital channels.<\/p>\n
NASCAR informed some team executives before the end of the 2025 season that retaining a playoff was the most likely outcome of its championship system review<\/a>, SBJ previously reported. Industry executives who have spoken with SBJ in recent weeks have kept with that prediction, forecasting that NASCAR will switch to a system that puts a greater emphasis on points earned during the entire season but without going fully back to the traditional format used before 2004. <\/p>\n Some fans had been pushing NASCAR to go back to the old-fashioned Winston Cup points format used when Winston was title sponsor of the sport from 1971 to 2003. The expectation is that the new format will be closer to the old \u201cChase\u201d system, and it\u2019s possible NASCAR could go back to using that vernacular. <\/p>\n