NASCAR "Chases" For A Better Championship

After 12 seasons of the NASCAR Playoffs, the premier stock car racing series is returning to the Chase format for the 2026 season, the first time since 2013. 

The move comes after years of constant complaining from drivers and fans about the lack of crowning a “real champion” in the playoffs, especially after the 2025 Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway ended in controversial fashion.  

As a result of that race, Denny Hamlin, who led the majority of the race and had dominated the season up to that point, lost the title to Kyle Larson simply due to Larson finishing ahead of Hamlin. The “win-and-you're-in" style arguably led to drivers who shouldn’t have made the playoffs sneaking in during unpredictable races and leaving more deserving drivers out. 

T new Chase format works like this: points are given out during the first 26 races based on where a driver finishes, and the top 16 drivers after race 26 are rewarded with a spot in the chase. Points are reset before the chase begins, with more points being awarded based on your regular season points finish.  

100 points separate first and 16^th, which is not an impossible gap to overcome, but it does benefit those higher in the standings at the beginning of the chase. The driver with the most points in the final ten races of the season is crowned the NASCAR Cup Series champion at the final race. The lower O’Reilly Series will have 12 drivers in their chase, and the even lower Craftsman Truck Series will have 10 drivers, and both will have less races and a smaller points gap between first and last place compared to the Cup Series. 

Personally, the Chase format was always the format I preferred. It was the system I grew up with, and it’s the one I’ve advocated for years. It rewards consistency over the season while also allowing for blockbuster championship battles as the final race approaches.  

It was a perfect compromise between the NASCAR-preferred playoffs and fan-preferred full points format. I think the new format is amazing and should lead to good racing in 2026. 

One thing that I like about the new Chase format is its focus on consistency. The Cinderella story isn’t good for NASCAR, so getting rid of the driver who is consistently finishing in the bottom half of drivers during races but happens to get a win at a track like Daytona or Talladega by happen-stance helps allow the driver who may not have a win but finishes top five or ten at nearly every race have a shot at the championship.  

To put it in football terms, instead of giving a team who’s 6-6 a shot at a championship because they beat a top 10 team, the new format would give a team who finished 10-2 a shot as they played more consistently over the season. 

Another thing I like about the newformat is that even though “win-and-you're-in" is gone, winning still matters. During the old format, it was common to see the winner not get the most points in a race because a driver who finished behind them got more stage points than them (don’t worry, I’ll explain stage points in just a bit). But now, even if the driver who finishes second wins both stages, the driver who actually wins the race will receive more points.  

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows with the new format, however. I do not like the large number of drivers in the Cup format. I understand that the drivers and sponsors of each team benefit from making the Chase financially but cutting the number of drivers who qualifywould allow the drivers who truly deserve to be in the Chase to not worry about drivers who probably don’t deserve to be there. 

Secondly, I hate that stage racing survives the format change. Introduced in 2017, stage racing cuts NASCAR races up into three “stages” (four for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, the longest race on the Cup schedule), with points being given to the top 10 at the end of stage one and two based on where they finish in that stage. 

I’ve never liked stage racing. When it was introduced, I saw it as a way for NASCAR to artificially throw cautions and satisfy advertisers, and over time my belief was proven right.

Part of the stage racing introduction was “playoff points”, which stuck with you during a playoff run even during the points resets of each round. Not to mention, I already pointed out how some drivers would earn more points than the eventual winner because of stage points. With playoff points being eliminated in the new system, stage racing seems like a relic of the Playoff era that has no place in the new Chase format era.  

To some, the new Chase format isn’t what they wanted for 2026. A vocal group of fans would prefer NASCAR to go to a full points system similar to other motorsports like Formula 1 or IndyCar. While I agree that a full points system is better than the playoffs, I believe that the Chaseis an overall better system.  

The big issue I find with a full points system is the possibility of a champion being crowned before the final race. An example is Matt Kenseth in 2003, who had a 226-point advantage over second place Jimmie Johnson before the finale at Atlanta, clinching the title despite only winning one race. In a more recent non-NASCAR example, Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen won the 2022 driver’s championship at the Japanese Grand Prix with four races to go due to winning 12 of the 18 races up to that point. 

Could this same issue occur in the chase? Possibly, but in the 10 seasons that the chase previously ran, it didn’t happen, and I don’t see it happening again due to how close drivers have been recently because of the current model of car used. I believe the chase is the better option than a full points system due to the increased chance of a championship battle in the final race without it feeling artificial like it did in the Playoffs. 

Overall, I like the new Chase format, and I think it’s a great improvement from the previous Playoff format. While there are issues with it, I think those could be solved in the future, and I believe the Chase will lead to more fans tuning into NASCAR over time. 

It’s time to Chase for the Cup again.