Just two races remain until the postseason begins for the NASCAR Cup Series.
And, you might remember, the format is different this season.
Following 12 years of the win-and-in elimination-style playoff format, the Chase is back. This postseason system is designed to award consistency and drivers who have achieved success over the stretch of a long season — that began all the way back in February at the Daytona 500 — rather than drivers who simply won one race amid an otherwise mediocre season.
"I feel like how I've approached racing in the Cup Series was probably better suited for the Chase format," Tyler Reddick, driver of the No. 45 Toyota, recently told USA TODAY Sports. "I feel like one of our strengths as a team is consistency. Another one of our strengths is the fight
we put up, the grit that we have. We have days that don't go smooth, but we don't let it derail us.
"So, I feel like for us, what we've been through, how we handle the things that come our way, we have the right qualities to be good in the Chase."
The point standings have been interesting to follow all season long.
After winning five of the first nine races, including three in a row to start the season, Reddick built a massive lead at the top of the standings. But 45-year-old Denny Hamlin, still in pursuit of his first championship, had a midseason surge amid some struggles for Reddick and ripped off three consecutive wins at Nashville, Michigan and Pocono. Hamlin has maintained his place at the top of the standings with top-five finishes in five of the last six races.
Other contenders include Ryan Blaney, who is second in the standings with wins at Las Vegas and Atlanta. Blaney’s No. 12 Ford is the only non-Toyota in the top five. He also has six stage wins this season, which leads all drivers.
Ty Gibbs is third in points with wins at Bristol and Iowa, Reddick is fourth and another Toyota, Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 for Joe Gibbs Racing, is fifth.
A driver who is making a late-season push is three-time champion Joey Logano. Following the Sonoma race at the end of June, Logano was 20th in points and looked like a longshot to even make the Chase. Since then, he won races at North Wilkesboro and Richmond, and then notched two other top 10 finishes at Atlanta and the Brickyard 400. Logano is now ninth in points. He has the chance to clinch his spot in the Chase this weekend at New Hampshire, where he has an average finish of 12.7 and a pair of victories.
"We’ve been able to switch our goals from making the Chase to winning the championship. It’s quite the turnaround in a month and a half’s time or so," Logano said after winning at Richmond last weekend. "This team fought harder and kept trying to figure it out. That’s what to me is one of the most impressive parts about this team. A lot of that is, we are the team that won the championships together, right? We know we all can do it."
Here’s everything to know about the Chase with two races remaining in the regular season.
When does the Chase begin?
The Chase opens at one of NASCAR’s crown jewels, the Southern 500 in Darlington, South Carolina on Sept. 6. It’s the first of 10 races in the postseason.
Races that follow Darlington include stops at Gateway, Bristol, Kansas, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Talladega and Martinsville before the championship run wraps up at Homestead — just outside Miami, Florida.
How many drivers make the Chase?
The postseason field will be made up of the top 16 drivers in the point standings. Unlike the previous format, there won’t be any elimination rounds. Points will be reset and reseeded based on regular season standings, but drivers will have advantages based on how they fared in the first 26 races of the season.
Points will be reset this way, with the regular-season leader getting a 25-point cushion over second place.
- 1st: 2,100
- 2nd: 2,075
- 3rd: 2,065
Then decreasing by five-point increments each spot through 16th.
Who has clinched a spot in NASCAR’s postseason Chase?
With races remaining at New Hampshire and Daytona, the following drivers have already clinched spots in the Chase, no matter their results in the last two regular season competitions: Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell.
Remarkably — and in a show of how strong the Toyotas have been this season — all four drivers for Joe Gibbs Racing have already clinched spots. Despite not winning a race yet this season, Bell is still viewed as a contender for the championship with seven second-place finishes this year.
Who is mathematically eliminated from the Chase?
The maximum number of points a driver can earn in a single race is 76: 55 points for winning, 10 points apiece for winning Stages 1 and 2, and one point for notching the fastest lap. That gives us a total of 152 points a driver can earn if everything goes perfect for them in the last two races.
Even if that happens for the following drivers, it still wouldn’t be enough to put them inside the top 16. Drivers already eliminated include Austin Dillon, Riley Herbst, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., John Hunter Nemechek, Alex Bowman, Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, Cole Custer, Ty Dillon, Connor Zilisch and Cody Ware.
Austin Hill, who replaced Kyle Busch at Richard Childress Racing following the two-time champion’s shocking death in May, is ineligible for the championship. Even if he were, Hill hasn’t performed well enough to start a debate with no top-15 finishes in 14 races. Hill is eligible for the O’Reilly Series championship where he is also running full-time for RCR.
Who is on the bubble for NASCAR’s postseason Chase?
The three drivers just inside the cutline are Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric and Shane van Gisbergen. Wallace and Cindric can’t afford to make any major mistakes at New Hampshire and Daytona, while van Gisbergen needs to perform well to hold onto his final spot.
A road course ace who won races this year at Watkins Glen and Sonoma, van Gisbergen has shown improvement on NASCAR’s traditional ovals, especially at shorter tracks like New Hampshire. The 37-year-old from New Zealand placed fifth in the race at North Wilkesboro and salvaged a 14th-place finish at Richmond this past weekend. He’s gotten extra reps in the Truck Series too, notching top-four finishes at both North Wilkesboro and Richmond. At larger ovals, van Gisbergen has notched top-10 finishes at both Atlanta races and Nashville this season.
Van Gisbergen was 32nd last season at New Hampshire, but he's confident entering this final push.
"I was decent there last year. I enjoyed it, ran quite well until we got spun out," van Gisbergen said after the Richmond race. "So, hopefully we qualify well. That's something we need to work on. We just need a good points day so we have that buffer for Daytona."
Who has the most to gain at the New Hampshire NASCAR race?
Ryan Preece trails van Gisbergen for the final Chase spot by 50 points. While New Hampshire is somewhat of the home track for the Connecticut native, Preece’s average finish there is 20.5. Preece was 15th last year at New Hampshire and 11th the year before. He has notched a pair of top-three finishes there in the O’Reilly Series.
Behind Preece is van Gisbergen’s teammate Ross Chastain, former champion Brad Keselowski and Legacy Motor Club driver Erik Jones. All three are within 81 points of van Gisbergen. Keselowski has won at New Hampshire twice, in 2014 and 2020.
Trailing those drivers, but still not mathematically eliminated, are Michael McDowell, AJ Allmendinger, Todd Gilliland and Zane Smith.
Will any spots still be up for grabs at Daytona?
Potentially. It all depends on how New Hampshire turns out for the drivers around the bubble. As racing fans know, anything can happen at Daytona.
What Silly Season moves still need to be sorted out for NASCAR 2027 free agency?
Most moves have been announced.
Corey Heim, who won two races this season in spot starts for 23XI Racing at Naval Base Coronado and the Brickyard 400, will join the team full-time in 2027. He’ll be replacing Riley Herbst, who is expected to join Legacy Motor Club, filling the seat of the third charter they’re acquiring from Rick Ware Racing.
At Wood Brothers, former O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Jesse Love will replace Josh Berry. Despite three consecutive top 10 finishes, Berry currently doesn’t have a ride secured for next season at the Cup Series level.
Alex Bowman will race one more season for Hendrick Motorsports in 2027 before retiring. In 2028, his seat in the No. 48 will be filled by Connor Zilisch, currently a rookie at Trackhouse Racing.
Noah Gragson and Todd Gilliland — who won the In-Season Challenge this year — signed extensions to remain with Front Row Motorsports. Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece have also agreed to extensions with RFK Racing.
Kaulig Racing has not announced an extension yet for Ty Dillon — the grandson of Richard Childress — and there’s a question of whether he will remain with the team if Kaulig switches manufacturers to Dodge in 2027. Kaulig has driven RAM machines in the Truck Series this season, and Dillon and AJ Allmendinger haven’t had support from Chevrolet this season in ways that other teams signed with the manufacturer do.
The big question remaining is who will be the long-term replacement for Kyle Busch’s seat at Richard Childress Racing. Austin Hill has driven Busch’s car — renumbered from 8 to 33 — since Busch's death, but RCR hasn’t announced an extension for him and Hill hasn’t performed all that well with three DNFs and zero top-10 finishes in 14 races. If Hill isn’t the long-term answer for RCR, they could sign Berry or bring up a driver from the Truck Series or O’Reilly Series.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASCAR Chase: What to know about the postseason with two races to go
