The weekend
Cup weekends are compressed: usually one short practice and a qualifying session — single-car runs at most ovals, group running at road courses — before the race takes over Sunday. The race itself is broken into three stages, the first two ending in a planned caution that bunches the field, so there is a genuine sprint to each stage break with points on the line. Thirty-six chartered cars are guaranteed a start every week; open entries can fill the field to forty.
Points
2026 rewrote the maths. A win now pays 55 points, with second place on just 35 — a deliberate 20-point chasm to make victory worth chasing. From there it falls a point per position down to a single point for 36th and beyond. The top ten at the end of each of the first two stages bank 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 on the spot, and the race's fastest lap is worth one more — unless the car has been to the garage. A perfect afternoon of both stage wins, the race win and fastest lap collects 76 points. The old system of bankable playoff points is gone entirely.
What decides things
The elimination playoff era is over. From 2026 NASCAR returns to The Chase: after the 26-race regular season, the top 16 in points qualify — strictly on points, with win-and-you're-in scrapped. Scores then reset on a staggered grid: 2,100 for the regular-season champion, 2,075 for the second seed, then five-point steps down to 2,000. Over the final ten races, everything simply counts — no eliminations every three races, no Championship 4, no one-race shootout. Whoever holds the most points after the Homestead-Miami finale is champion, which puts ten weeks of sustained excellence back above one good Sunday.
The championship
Three titles run side by side: the Drivers' championship decided by The Chase, an Owners' championship scored per car — the table the charter system hangs off — and a Manufacturers' championship contested by Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota. The headline change for fans: the champion is now the driver who masters the whole ten-race run-in, not the one who survives a winner-take-all finale.