A championship is supposed to reward the driver who delivers when the pressure is highest. But what happens when the format designed to create that pressure leaves some fans questioning whether the best driver is actually being rewarded? NASCAR has spent years trying to strike that balance, moving between season-long consistency and postseason drama, without finding a system that satisfies everyone.

The return to The Chase in 2026 was another attempt to settle that argument. With nine of the 10 postseason races completed, Kyle Larson has established a sizeable advantage heading into Homestead-Miami Speedway. Yet the response to the new points system has been anything but unanimous. Former NASCAR broadcaster Doug Rice recently put that divide into perspective.

“I was on X. I put this out. So after all the discussion last year, are you happy with the way NASCAR points turned out this year? I got a lot of responses,” said Rice on the Fast Talk podcast. “I got everything from ‘Extremely, it was really exciting’ to ‘I’ve quit watching racing; I only watch football now.’ And other people saying, ‘No, we must have full season points.’”

Rice’s responses reflect three distinct schools of thought. Some fans have embraced the return of a longer championship battle, others miss the urgency of elimination racing, while another section believes NASCAR should abandon postseason resets altogether.

Until 2025, the Cup Series used a 16-driver elimination playoff. Drivers advanced through three rounds, with four eliminated after each round. The remaining Championship 4 then competed in a winner-take-all finale at Phoenix. 

Race victories could secure automatic playoff entry, while stage wins and race victories accumulated playoff points that provided advantages during the postseason.

The 2026 format has removed those elimination rounds. The top 16 drivers in regular-season points qualify for a 10-race Chase, with points reset according to their seeding. The regular-season champion starts with 2,100 points, 25 ahead of the second seed, while subsequent positions drop by five points.

A race victory is now worth 55 points instead of 40, and the driver with the highest total after Homestead wins the championship.

The change gives teams a longer runway, but it has not necessarily delivered the close championship battle everyone anticipated. Larson’s performance is an important part of that discussion. He entered the Chase as the seventh seed but quickly turned himself into the driver everyone else had to chase.

Victories at Gateway and Kansas, combined with six consecutive finishes of sixth or better to open the postseason, gave the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet considerable momentum. His 34th-place result at Phoenix, following a cut tire and an ill-handling car, briefly offered his rivals an opportunity.

However, his Talladega victory restored his advantage, and he left Martinsville leading Christopher Bell by 67 points, with Denny Hamlin 70 behind.

For fans who want the championship fight to remain alive until the finale, that is a difficult picture to embrace. Had several drivers exchanged the points lead throughout the Chase, the same format might have received a considerably different reception. Instead, Larson’s consistency has made the closing stretch look less competitive than the underlying format was designed to produce.

That does not necessarily make the system responsible for the lack of suspense. Larson has simply put together the sort of postseason run that makes it difficult for anybody to catch him.

However, not everyone has viewed the change through the lens of championship suspense. Several observers have enjoyed the demands it has placed on teams, particularly the absence of any opportunity to coast through a round after securing advancement. Former Cup Series driver Kyle Petty is among those who have welcomed that difference.

“I have enjoyed this more than I enjoyed rolling in the Phoenix and drawing high cards like I said running ago,” Petty said. “I enjoyed this, and I think the teams—it’s a different pressure on these teams. We heard them talk early on, like, man, you’d win the first race of a round, and you could coast to set races two and three. These guys have had to perform every single race in this ten-race stretch.”

Petty’s point is particularly relevant when comparing the two systems. Under the elimination format, winning the opening race of a round guaranteed advancement, although subsequent results could still influence a driver’s seeding. 

That security changed the calculation for teams in the remaining races. In the Chase, there is no such protection. A victory brings 55 points, but it does not guarantee anything beyond that afternoon.

Larson’s recovery at Las Vegas demonstrated the value of that approach. After a lengthy pit stop put him a lap down, he fought back to finish second. At Kansas, he had to reclaim the lead from Chase Briscoe with seven laps remaining after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver had passed him late in the race. Both performances mattered beyond the trophy or finishing position because every point contributed to the same championship total.

PRN’s Brad Gillie also sees a noticeable difference in how drivers and teams approach the competition, particularly when it comes to the importance of stage points and maintaining intensity throughout an entire race.

“What we have now under the Chase format, and what I’m really enjoying about this is, I feel this has made every single team and driver go harder every single lap of the race to just watch them,” Gillie said. “You can tell they’re more worn out after a race. You can tell just the passion for stage points, and everything else is there.

“And I think that’s been really cool because how many victories have we seen this year that we have looked back and said, ‘Man, that was a hard-earned victory?’ That was a well-earned victory, whatever you want to say. And I would venture to guess you’d come up with 35 of them so far.”

There have been several examples to support Gillie’s observation. Gateway produced 18 cautions and two overtime attempts, with Larson eventually holding off Joey Logano and Alex Bowman after making a decisive four-tire call. At Darlington, Bell ended a 33-race winless stretch by beating teammate Ty Gibbs, turning seven previous runner-up finishes into a Chase-opening victory.

Kansas offered another illustration. Briscoe had taken the lead from Larson with 29 laps remaining, but Larson managed his tires, recovered the position, and won after a late-race battle. 

Talladega then produced a completely different challenge, with Larson making his winning move on the final lap after dropping as far back as 11th. These were not victories handed to drivers by a favorable championship calculation. They required execution under pressure.

Ultimately, Rice’s responses underline why NASCAR continues to face resistance whenever it changes its championship structure. Petty and Gillie appreciate the sustained effort the Chase demands, while dissatisfied fans want either the unpredictability of eliminations or the straightforward fairness of a full-season points championship.

Larson’s dominance has complicated that debate, but it has not settled it. If anything, the final race at Homestead will provide another opportunity to judge what NASCAR has built. 

The question is whether fans want a champion determined by the strongest 10-race run, the most consistent 36-race campaign, or the driver who survives the pressure of a winner-take-all finale. NASCAR has chosen its middle ground. Whether its audience accepts that compromise remains a different contest.