{"id":405346,"date":"2026-01-12T21:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/405346\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T21:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:45:07","slug":"nascar-returns-to-chase-format-to-decide-champions-in-26-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/405346\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR returns to &#8216;Chase&#8217; format to decide champions in &#8217;26 and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NASCAR on Monday announced that it will return to the &#8220;Chase&#8221; style championship format that it used from 2004-13 for the 2026 season and beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The format replaces NASCAR&#8217;s elimination-style playoff bracket that it has used since 2014 that includes multiple points resets and a one-race, winner-take-all finale to decide the title between the four drivers that make the championship round.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sixteen drivers will make the Chase after 26 regular season races. The &#8216;win-and-in&#8217; factor of the playoffs, which ensured drivers that won in the regular season a playoff berth, will no longer be in place, with the top-16 drivers in points after 26 regular season races making the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The No. 1 seed in the Chase will have a 25-point lead over the driver in second place, ensuring the &#8220;regular season champion&#8221; will still carry a notable advantage into the postseason. After the 10-race Chase, the Chase driver with the most points will win the title. There will be no points resets or eliminations during the 10-race postseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR on Monday announced that it will return to the &#8220;Chase&#8221; style championship format that it used from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-405346","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\/405346","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=405346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}