NASCAR event, but NASCAR is going «Back to the Future.»
On Monday, NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell, sitting alongside Hall of Famers Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr., announced a long-anticipated overhaul of the manner in which stock car racing’s top series will determine its champion. There will still be a 26-race «regular season,» and after that final event, the 16 top drivers in the points standings will still be separated from the rest to begin a 10-race postseason that will crown a champion.
But gone is win and in, when a racer was essentially guaranteed a postseason berth just by winning one race. Gone are elimination rounds. Gone is any official «stick-and-ball» style bracket. Gone are playoff points and what had become an overabundance of additional math.
The only arithmetic required now is to add up points earned during races (winners receive 55 points versus 40, and stage points still exist). Whoever has the most when the checkered flag flies over Homestead-Miami Speedway in November will hoist the big silver Cup.
Chase Elliott and Chase Briscoe.
It was Elliott who said that it was appealing that now a champion would «come out in the wash» rewarded for a yearlong effort, as opposed to being determined by the roulette wheel of the final-race, four-driver, highest-finisher-wins format that might erase a year’s worth of work. It certainly did that to Denny Hamlin in the 2025 finale, who led the series in wins and dominated the season finale race until a late caution at Phoenix undid it all.
«We all grew up on this,» Ryan Blaney said of himself and the Chases when it comes to the Chase. «It just feels right.»
It also feels cleaner. Simpler. Largely gimmick free. It passes the elevator test. You can explain it to a friend during a lift to your hotel room instead of needing an entire dinner and a calculator. While it isn’t a total rewind to the days of the Winston Cup Series and a 36-race points setup, it also isn’t the seemingly ever-changing playoff formula that was unapologetically designed in an effort to lure potential new fans from other sports by giving them a familiar format.
What it is, is a compromise.
«Yeah, it won’t be enough for some, but I am so happy,» admitted Martin, who spent the first two decades of his Cup career racing for titles under the 36-race rules but his last decade with the Chase. He finished runner-up in each format. «I wanted it all. But I am still happy.»
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However, even as the conversation continued through spring and summer via email and more meetings, as it moved through discussions of subtler changes, such as expanding the championship fight from just the season finale to instead be spread out over the final three of four races, Martin’s voice from that day in February kept echoing. Now, granted, some of that wasn’t an echo. He also was pretty vocal about it all on social media and various NASCAR media outlets.
The momentum Martin continued to create — slowly but surely winning over even those who’d rolled their eyes at his face on the giant projection screens in that first meeting — was the tug toward the other side of line that the new-format conversation needed. A needed tug backward. Not all the way into NASCAR’s past, but certainly in that direction. If nothing else, Martin’s push resulted in a much-needed, feel-good, group-hug moment for a sport anxious to emerge from perhaps its ugliest offseason, punctuated by a contentious antitrust lawsuit and the resignation of commissioner Steve Phelps, the fallout of text messages revealed around that suit.
«I appeal to all race fans, but especially the classic fans, who say to me, ‘I don’t watch anymore,'» Martin said to his people from the stage on Monday. «I say, we need you. Come on back. We’re headed in the right direction … come back and join with us, and we’ll keep making progress.»
As Elliott added, «[I want to] challenge the race fans and say, ‘Let’s enjoy what we’ve got.’ We’re so quick to complain about everything. Everything that we have and everything that we do. Let’s enjoy what we have because we’re making history, whether you like it or not. Celebrate the champion … I think this format promotes that.»
This will not be NASCAR’s final championship format. For 77 years, the sanctioning body has tinkered with its points system more than a crew chief fiddles with his race car. Richard Petty’s seven championships came via six different points systems, including a five-year stretch when he won four titles with four different points scales. In the end, as The King likes to say, «I just tried to win every week, and if the math worked out at the end, they gave me a big trophy.»
But for now, and for the first time in a long time, the next NASCAR champion will earn the crown by sticking to that very plan. By indeed going «Back to the Future.»
