NASCAR confirmed on Thursday afternoon that it has scheduled a press conference to announce the championship format for the 2026 season and beyond. The announcement marks the end of the modern format after 12 years.
However, a question remains as to how the format change might play out. Most fan hopes for a full-season points, but contrary to the announcement, speculation remains.
Will the NASCAR Championship Have a Full-Season System?
NASCAR insider Jeff Gluck revealed on X when NASCAR plans to announce its schedule change.
“The moment we’ve all been waiting for: the new NASCAR championship format announcement is Monday afternoon (3:30 pm ET),” the Athletic reporter wrote on X. “It will be streamed on NASCAR.com, NASCAR’s YouTube and The NASCAR Channel,” he added.
One eagle-eyed fan came up with an interesting theory based on Gluck’s wording. “Specifically calling it a championship format and not a playoff format is interesting,” they wrote.
The format used in 2025, which featured a four-round, 10-race knockout playoff with 16 championship contenders following the 26-race regular season, was implemented back in 2014.
NASCAR at 3:30 Monday afternoon to all the full season point hopefuls pic.twitter.com/zOpDKiyYha
— Victory Lane Vibes (@VLVibesPodcast) January 9, 2026
Aside from the introduction of stage racing in 2017, this format has remained unchanged since its introduction. However, the volatility of three-race playoff rounds, coupled with a single-race championship that guarantees four contenders, has long led to calls for change.
Some fans have gone so far as to suggest that the modern era has produced undeserving champions after undeserving champions.
Those complaints reached all-time highs in both 2024 and 2025. In 2024, Joey Logano won his third championship despite a 15th-place finish in the regular season point standings, while in 2025, the entire season came down to a controversial caution flag with just over two laps remaining in the Phoenix Raceway season finale.
Similar instances had happened semi-regularly in the first decade of the format’s existence as well. Still, NASCAR could simply not ward off the complaints for much longer after the sour taste left in the mouths of so many this past November.
NASCAR appointed a designated playoff committee to reach an agreement on a new championship system for 2026. That committee met for the final time in September before the decision was turned over to NASCAR leadership.
The full-season format with no postseason or points resets seems unlikely, given that the shortcomings of this format led NASCAR to create a postseason in the first place. But it’s a format that ties itself to NASCAR’s peak in popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s, when legends like Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon won their championships.
MORE: NASCAR Faces Make-or-Break Championship Reveal as Fans Demand End to ‘Fake’ Championships
The current playoff format, if it remains unchanged, is a slight possibility, though it seems relatively unlikely given the extensive discussion of its significant flaws. Fans have long expressed frustration with the current format, which often fails to reward the best driver over the whole season.
But the Chase format, used from 2004 to 2013, might be the sweet spot NASCAR is looking for. It featured a 10-race postseason originally consisting of 10 drivers. It was later expanded to 12, with the highest drivers in regular-season points qualifying and a Wild Card system rewarding drivers outside the top 10 with the most wins.
NASCAR reached its peak in popularity from 2004 to 2005 with this format, making it the closest to the full-season approach many fans are clamoring for while still keeping some form of postseason intact.