NASCAR's New Playoff Format, Explained — And The Guy Who Beat It

NASCAR quietly rebuilt its entire playoff format for 2026 and almost nobody covered it. Then on Saturday night at Daytona, it produced the exact result it was designed to prevent. Here's the change: the knockout rounds are gone. No more three rounds of three and a winner-take-all Championship 4. It's a ten-race Chase — the first since 2013 — with one points reset and no eliminations. And "win and in" is abolished. The field is set purely on regular season points. Which is why what happened at Daytona is so strange. Ryan Preece went into the last race of the regular season 31 points below the cutline, won it in overtime with a last-lap pass, and made the playoffs — but not because he won. Winning doesn't do that anymore. He got in on points, and he needed every single one of them. Meanwhile the driver he passed had a 31-point cushion, won the opening stage, and lost his season on a pit call. So the rule worked exactly as designed and changed nothing. I get into why that's more interesting than it sounds, and why the new format didn't make Daytona calmer — it made it crueler. Also: the Southern 500 opens the Chase this Sunday, Alex Palou wrapped up a fourth straight IndyCar title, and Milwaukee ran race two before race one because of the weather. A driver 31 points below the cutline won at Daytona and made the playoffs anyway. Did NASCAR fix its format — or just make the same thing happen through a different door? Tell me where you land. The Thursday Pit Stop, from the Be Differential podcast. New episodes every Thursday. Newsletter: https://www.bedifferentialpodcast.com/