Ryan McGee
Jan 12, 2026, 07:09 PM ET
No one has ever driven a DeLorean in a 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.
In other words, it is essentially a return to the way that NASCAR champions were crowned from 2004 through 2013, the pre-playoff era, known as the Chase. Fittingly, two of the three current drivers who also shared the stage are named Chase: 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."
It was Martin who long banged a very loud drum on behalf of an old-school 36-race revival. That campaign began during 2025 Daytona 500 weekend, nearly a year ago. That's when NASCAR formed an exploratory committee and met in the massive tower that overlooks the World Center of Racing. The group included NASCAR executives, TV network representatives and several current drivers (Hamlin among them), as well as representatives from the auto manufacturers and a handful of media members. Full disclosure: I was one of those media members.
In that initial meeting, everyone attended in person with the exception of Earnhardt, who was in the racetrack infield on Zoom, and Martin, who also was joining via video conference, from his home in Arkansas. The meeting was only minutes old when Martin passionately took over the proceedings, speaking from the heart about his conversations at short tracks throughout the Midwest with what NASCAR brass have long referred to as "core fans."
The 40-time race winner said aloud what everyone in the room already knew: It was the reason the committee had been formed in the first place. He said that those core fans felt disconnected because what they watched in NASCAR's big leagues no longer resembled every other stop along the stock car racing ladder when it came to determining the best of the best.
Martin's speech set a tone that remained with the effort all the way until its final announcement on Monday. On that day in February, as was recognized by O'Donnell and Martin on Monday, it was a tone that initially hit the committee like a wet loaf of bread. O'Donnell joked during the news conference: "We wanted to throw Mark out of the room."
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."
