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Chase Elliot stands on top of his car to celebrate his NASCAR Cup Series victory at EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, on June 28, 2025. The NASCAR season ahead anticipates several changes to the playoff picture in 2026. Photo courtesy of @durag_dale on Instagram.<\/p>\n
With the NASCAR season officially starting this weekend with the\u00a0Cook Out\u00a0Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium,\u00a0some\u00a0major changes have been implemented in\u00a0NASCAR over\u00a0the past month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First off, the \u201cplayoffs\u201d are no more. The playoff format that took place from 2017-2025 has officially been axed as\u00a0viewership and fan engagement has been declining steadily since 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The format had six different\u00a0champions,\u00a0Martin Truex Jr (2017), Joey Logano (2018, 2022, 2024), Kyle Busch (2019), Chase Elliott (2020), Kyle Larson (2021, 2025)\u00a0and\u00a0Ryan Blaney (2023).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The biggest gripe the fans had with the\u00a0previous\u00a0format is specifically against Logano in 2024. Logano won the championship in Phoenix that year but had a\u00a017.11 average finish across all races.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That average finish was the lowest of any NASCAR champion in the history of the\u00a0sport. That\u00a0also includes\u00a0this year\u2019s finish In the Cup\u00a0Series\u00a0where Denny Hamlin led\u00a0208 out of the 312 total laps and was leading until a caution in the final three laps which,\u00a0cemented Kyle Larson\u2019s come from behind championship.\u00a0In addition,\u00a0Connor Zilisch\u2019s Xfinity\u00a0Series\u00a0campaign,\u00a0where he lost the championship with a few laps to go\u00a0despite winning\u00a010 out of the 33 races (the most ever by a rookie in Xfinity\u00a0Series\u00a0history),\u00a0should be\u00a0taken into account.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those three scenarios were when\u00a0NASCAR knew it was time for a change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s\u00a0why NASCAR switched back to \u201cThe Chase\u201d format (used from\u00a02004-2013) with a few changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the Cup\u00a0Series,\u00a0there will be 10 races to\u00a0decide\u00a0the champion, then nine for the\u00a0O\u2019Reilly Auto\u00a0Parts Series\u00a0and finally, seven for the Trucks\u00a0Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The field size will be the same as before, 16 for the Cup\u00a0Series, 12 in the O\u2019Reilly\u00a0Series\u00a0(formerly the Xfinity\u00a0Series) and 10 in the Trucks\u00a0Series.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The win\u00a0and in\u00a0rule\u00a0is\u00a0officially out, so if you win a race,\u00a0you are no longer guaranteed into the Chase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another change is that race winners will now get 55 points for a win instead of the\u00a0previous\u00a040 (15 more than previously) and the other positions points do not change.\u00a0
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-215.png\")
The format of NASCAR will face several changes this upcoming season. Due to low viewership, changes were made to create a more intriguing season and playoff picture. Photo courtesy of @Nascar on Instagram.<\/p>\n
For the chase, the drivers\u2019\u00a0points will be reset with first getting 2,100, second getting 2,075, third getting 2,065 and then each position from fourth to 16th\u00a0getting a five-point drop for each seed after (16th\u00a0gets 2000 points).\u00a0<\/p>\n
To win the new format you need to have the most points at the end of the 10, nine or seven races.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also changing for the upcoming season is the fastest lap eligibility.\u00a0In 2026, drivers will be disallowed from getting the fastest lap once their car has had repairs in the garage. So,\u00a0if you set it before you wreck and\u00a0go\u00a0to\u00a0the garage, it counts. This is because previously,\u00a0cars that got wrecked and\u00a0would go back to the garage, would\u00a0come back down however many\u00a0laps\u00a0and take the fastest lap point. This was famously\u00a0exploited\u00a0by Kyle Larson and\u00a0the No. 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another change is NASCAR lowered the minimum age requirement for racing at 1.25\u00a0mile\u00a0and short tracks in the O\u2019Reilly Series to 17 and older.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NASCAR is also increasing the horsepower for Cup Series cars\u00a0from road\u00a0courses and oval tracks that are shorter than 1.5 miles to 750.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Penultimately, Cup Series drivers that have three or more years of experience in the Cup Series will be able to race more races in the lower Series in\u00a02026. Cup drivers can now race up to 10 O\u2019Reilly Series races and up to eight Truck Series races.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, the Roval,\u00a0which was at Charlotte Motor Speedway and the only playoff road\u00a0course,\u00a0will be switching to an oval this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With\u00a0that\u00a0being\u00a0said, all\u00a0the changes NASCAR has made have\u00a0been\u00a0\u00a0received\u00a0well by fans,\u00a0and it will be fun to see what the Chase can produce in terms of playoff racing.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chase Elliot stands on top of his car to celebrate his NASCAR Cup Series victory at EchoPark Speedway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-440805","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\/440805","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=440805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}