Did You Notice? … We’re two races into the new NASCAR Cup Series championship format and on pace for the best drivers all year to battle it out for the title? It’s clear there will be no Cinderella story entering the chat; that is, unless you count Kyle Larson snapping his 51-race winless streak as an upset.
Larson’s victory Sunday (Sept. 13) was significant for another reason: it removes any doubt we’ll have a winless champion in 2026. Larson was the only driver inside the top nine in points without a victory, falling short despite a robust 838 laps led — that’s second most in Cup to points leader Denny Hamlin. Getting over the hump at World Wide Technology Raceway also moved Larson to second in the standings, setting up another battle between the Nos. 11 and 5 after their wild finish to the 2025 Cup championship finale.
Early on in this title race, there’s plenty of others still in the mix, from Christopher Bell to Ryan Blaney to Tyler Reddick. All of them have championship-style resumes. In fact, the seven drivers with over 375 laps led this season all find themselves eighth or better in points. Ty Gibbs, the only outlier, is sitting sixth with two wins and 280 laps led in his own right.
Happy Hour: No Eliminations! William Sawalich’s Revenge Wreck & Does the Champ Need to Win Homestead?
It’s clear this points format is rewarding the concept of winning without the gimmicks. And that’s an important step for a sport who’s always fought not only the stigma of having playoffs in the first place but concerns a driver could backdoor his way to a championship without a victory.
Those worries about coasting to a title are part of why NASCAR has the postseason to begin with. Back in 2003, Matt Kenseth won only once but built such a lead over his competition he clinched before the final race. Despite finishing dead last in that finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he still won by 90 points over Jimmie Johnson (equivalent to roughly 25-30 points in today’s system). Ryan Newman, who won a series high eight races that year, wound up settling for sixth.
NASCAR’s response was to create the 10-race playoff, designed to give dominant drivers like Newman a better chance to overcome a few bad breaks. And one thing we don’t talk about enough is that it helped! While the top seed didn’t always win during the first 10 years of the 10-race Chase, you never ended it with the equivalent of, say, an 8-8 NFL team winning the Super Bowl.
From 2004-13, the NASCAR Cup champion had an average of 5.9 victories on the season. The only driver to win less than five times and earn the title? Kurt Busch, who captured the very first Chase for the Championship in 2004 with three. Winning was so important during the 10-race sprint to the finish that only three times during the original Chase did a winless driver finish inside the top five in points: Kevin Harvick (2008), Kenseth (2010) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2013). Each of them got eliminated from title contention before the final race of the season.
This time around, NASCAR has put even more emphasis on winning with a 20-point gap between first and second place. If a driver sweeps both stages and earns the fastest lap that gap increases to a minimum of 23. That’s the biggest gap we’ve seen in any point system since NASCAR took purse winnings out of how they calculated the championship (yes, that was a thing at one point) in 1975.
Such a gap means it’s going to be virtually impossible to earn the title without a win. As we saw with Bell, who racked up four second-place finishes in the summer and seven in the regular season, he could only climb from 10th to sixth in points. But after winning the playoff opener at Darlington Raceway? He sits third, just 18 points behind Hamlin.
Fans have been clamoring for the best drivers to be fighting it out for the championship each and every year. Early returns with these new NASCAR changes show they might have gotten the formula right.
Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off…
- Lost in the chaos of the race at Gateway was Austin Dillon earning his second top-10 finish in the last three races for Richard Childress Racing. RCR still has yet to post a top five all year, reeling from the Kyle Busch tragedy, and is trying hard to lay a foundation to reset in 2027. They’re making progress.
- Alex Bowman finished second at Gateway, his best finish of the season, but did so despite not leading a lap. Driving for the winningest team all-time in the series, Hendrick Motorsports, he’s the only full-time driver remaining who hasn’t led at least one lap in 2026.
- William Sawalich‘s post-race interview, in which he refused to admit the obvious (he retaliated against Corey Day) is a direct result of NASCAR fining Ryan Preece earlier this year for speaking the truth. Is this really the right way to grow the sport? Forcing the drivers to play pretend over a conflict and a wreck that everyone could see with their own eyes was intentional? You can’t blame Sawalich for keeping his mouth shut but it would have been so much better for the sport if he didn’t.
Follow Tom Bowles on X at @RacingBowles
The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 50+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.
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