How to Watch NASCAR Chase Playoffs With Sling
16 drivers. 10 races. 1 champion. The Chase is back for the 2026 NASCAR season. Here’s a primer and how to watch NASCAR with Sling.
If you’ve ever wished stock car racing would ditch artificial gimmicks and get back to pure, high-octane grit, the 2026 NASCAR is putting fuel in your tank. For the 2026 postseason, the sanctioning body is turning back the clock by reviving "The Chase for the Championship"—a brutal, 10-race cumulative points sprint among 16 elite drivers where none of the competitors are eliminated along the way. That means no sudden cut-off lines after a bad restart, no free passes, and no single-race winner-take-all fluke. Every single lap, stage, and position across 10 weeks counts toward crowning a true champion, setting up the most intense autumn of racing we've seen in decades.
Here’s a preview of NASCAR’s 2026 “Chase for the Championship.” To watch the most remaining NASCAR races with Sling, subscribe to Sling Blue with USA Network and, in designated markets, NBC.
Chase Schedule: Calendar, Start Dates & Host Tracks
All remaining 2026 NASCAR races will air on either USA Network or NBC. Here’s a full look at the remaining schedule.
- Sunday, Sept. 6 – 5 p.m. ET – Cook Out Southern 500 (Darlington Raceway) – USA Network
- Sunday, Sept. 13 – 3 p.m. ET – Enjoy Illinois 300 (World Wide Technology Raceway) – USA Network
- Saturday, Sept. 19 – 7 p.m. ET – Bass Pro Shops Night Race (Bristol Motor Speedway) – USA Network
- Sunday, Sept. 27 – 3 p.m. ET – Hollywood Casino 400 (Kansas Speedway) – USA Network
- Sunday, Oct. 4 – 5:30 p.m. ET – South Point 400 (Las Vegas Motor Speedway) – USA Network
- Sunday, Oct. 11 – 3 p.m. ET – Bank of America Roval 400 (Charlotte Motor Speedway) – USA Network
- Sunday, Oct. 18 – 3 p.m. ET – Freeway Insurance 500 (Phoenix Raceway) – USA Network
- Sunday, Oct. 25 – 2 p.m. ET – Yellawood 500 (Talladega Superspeedway) – NBC
- Sunday, Nov. 1 – 2 p.m. ET – Xfinity 500 (Martinsville Speedway) – NBC
- Sunday, Nov. 8 – 3 p.m. ET – NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (Homestead-Miami Speedway) – NBC
The final three races of the season will air on NBC, which is available with Sling Blue or Select in the following markets:
- Boston
- Chicago
- Dallas
- Hartford
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- New York City
- Philadelphia
- San Francisco / Oakland / San Jose
- San Diego
- Washington D.C.
Subscribe to Sling Blue to watch the most NASCAR Racing with Sling.
Understanding the NASCAR Chase Format: How It Works
https://youtu.be/o3PeiYqWMLE?si=QvIrHs2DhoLjHH7b
The 2026 postseason represents a return to NASCAR's purest championship test. Unlike the knockout-style elimination playoffs used for the last dozen years, the revived Chase is a 10-race cumulative points battle with zero eliminations.
Once the 16-driver field is locked in, their points are reset to baseline totals with small performance gaps separating them based on their regular-season finishes. From that moment on, all 16 contenders run the entire 10-race stretch. There are no sudden cut-off lines or reset safety nets after three races. Instead, every point accumulated across every stage and finish throughout the 10 weeks counts toward a single running standings list. The driver who sits atop the points table at the conclusion of the season finale is crowned the Cup Series champion.
This format shifts the strategic landscape entirely. Drivers can no longer afford to survive and advance through mediocre weeks or rely on a single victory to wipe away a string of poor performances. Week-to-week consistency is once again the ultimate currency in stock car racing.
Qualification & Eligibility: How Drivers Make the Chase Grid
Under the revised 2026 system, NASCAR also scrapped the "win-and-you're-in" qualification rule. A victory during the 26-race regular season no longer guarantees a postseason ticket. Instead, the grid is determined strictly by the top 16 drivers in the regular-season points standings.
This rule change set up a dramatic bubble battle in the closing weeks of the regular season. Drivers had to grind for points in every single stage, knowing a single victory wouldn't bail out an inconsistent year. The battle reached its climax at the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona. Ryan Preece, driving the No. 60 Ford for RFK Racing, executed a dramatic walk-off win in overtime to catapult himself into the 16th and final spot. He joined Austin Cindric and Bubba Wallace, who both successfully clinched their berths on points during the regular-season finale, while road-course ace Shane van Gisbergen was heartbreakingly knocked out. Ultimately, only Rick Ware Racing's Cody Ware was mathematically eliminated from regular-season contention heading into the final race, showing just how tight the field remained.
Points & Scoring Architecture: Stage Points and Playoff Reset
To support this new era, NASCAR introduced a redesigned points scale structured to place an enormous premium on winning races and winning stages.
- Race Winner's Points: The winner of a Cup Series race now receives 55 points (up from 40 under the previous points system). Second place receives 35 points, third place gets 34, and points decrease in single-digit increments down to 40th place. Every starting driver earns at least 1 point.
- Stage Points: Stage 1 and Stage 2 continue to reward the top 10 finishers with points on a 10-to-1 descending scale. This makes a maximum of 75 points available to a driver who wins both stages and the race. Additionally, a single bonus point is awarded for setting the fastest lap of the race, making the maximum single-race output 76 points.
- The Baseline Reset: Upon entering the Chase, the points standings are completely reset. Regular-season champion Denny Hamlin starts with 2,100 points. Second place (Ryan Blaney) starts with 2,075 points (a 25-point gap). Third place (Tyler Reddick) starts with 2,065 points, and each subsequent seed drops by 5-point increments down to the 16th seed (Ryan Preece), who starts with 2,000 points.
- No Playoff Points Carrying Over: In a massive shift, there are no playoff points or stage-win credits carried over from the regular season to the Chase. It is a completely clean, standardized points gap at the start of Darlington.
Field Structure: Grid Size & Driver Count
https://youtu.be/rjAcP_pYzf8?si=v0ExvfRj_Asa-D0t
Exactly 16 drivers make up the 2026 Chase field. Unlike the previous elimination format where the field was whittled down over time, all 16 of these drivers remain championship-eligible through all 10 postseason races.
Here is the official 16-driver field and their reset point totals heading into the postseason:
- Denny Hamlin (Joe Gibbs Racing) — 2,100 points
- Ryan Blaney (Team Penske) — 2,075 points
- Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing) — 2,065 points
- Ty Gibbs (Joe Gibbs Racing) — 2,060 points
- Chase Briscoe (Joe Gibbs Racing) — 2,055 points
- Christopher Bell (Joe Gibbs Racing) — 2,050 points
- Kyle Larson (Hendrick Motorsports) — 2,045 points
- Chase Elliott (Hendrick Motorsports) — 2,040 points
- Joey Logano (Team Penske) — 2,035 points
- Chris Buescher (RFK Racing) — 2,030 points
- Daniel Suárez (Spire Motorsports) — 2,025 points
- Carson Hocevar (Spire Motorsports) — 2,020 points
- William Byron (Hendrick Motorsports) — 2,015 points
- Bubba Wallace (23XI Racing) — 2,010 points
- Austin Cindric (Team Penske) — 2,005 points
- Ryan Preece (RFK Racing) — 2,000 points
The Championship 4 & The Season Finale Format
One of the defining features of the 2014-2025 playoff format was the "winner-take-all" season finale, where the highest-finishing driver among four finalists won the cup, regardless of how they ran the rest of the year.
NASCAR has officially scrapped the Championship 4 concept.
There is no knockout round to determine a final four, nor is there a single-race shootout for the title. Instead, the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway is simply the 10th and final points-paying race of the Chase. The championship will be decided by who has accumulated the most total points across the entire 10-race stretch. A driver who builds a dominant lead through the first nine races could theoretically clinch the title before the green flag drops at Homestead, or we could see a multi-car points battle coming down to stage-by-stage calculations during the final laps of the season.
Drivers in Contention: Tracking Current Chase Standings
As the green flag prepares to wave at Darlington, the battle lines are clearly drawn between established champions, dominant regular-season powerhouses, and dark-horse contenders.
- The Favorite: Denny Hamlin (2,100 pts) enters as the No. 1 seed after a phenomenal regular season where he led a series-high 880 laps and secured four victories in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. At age 45, the oldest driver in the field is hunting for his elusive first Cup championship and carries the emotional support of the garage after losing his father in a house fire last winter.
- The Challenger: Driving for Hamlin's co-owned 23XI Racing team, Tyler Reddick (2,065 pts) leads the series with five victories—all of which came in a spectacular tear during the first two months of the season. Despite a summer cool-down, his raw speed makes him a premier title threat.
- The Dark Horses: Ty Gibbs (2,060 pts) has quietly enjoyed a massive breakout season, leading all Cup drivers with 181 stage points to lock up the fourth seed. Meanwhile, Chase Briscoe (2,055 pts), driving for JGR, has been on a tear since June, winning at Chicagoland and asserting himself as a genuine dark horse under crew chief James Small.
- The Defending Champ: Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson (2,045 pts) starts as the seventh seed. Larson has shown elite front-running speed but has also battled a high DNF rate and a string of costly late-race incidents. Minimizing bad days will be his primary hurdle under the cumulative points system.
Origins & History: Why NASCAR Created the Chase in 2004
To understand why this return to the Chase is so monumental, one must look back to its inception in 2004.
NASCAR originally established the 10-race cumulative points "Chase" format in 2004 as a way to guarantee late-season drama and create more championship possibilities heading into the season finale. Over time, this evolved into the highly volatile knockout-style elimination playoffs that defined the sport's postseason from 2014 to 2025.
The return to the original 10-race points battle represents a full-circle moment. This return honors the concept of a multi-race postseason while ensuring that the champion is crowned over a larger, fairer sample size.
Transition to NASCAR Playoffs & Historical "What If" Scenarios
While the modern elimination format produced extreme drama, it was also criticized for high levels of volatility. A single bad race or an innocent wreck could immediately eliminate a driver from championship contention under the 2014-2025 rules.
The late NASCAR icon Kyle Busch summarized the harsh reality of those previous systems, noting how a late-race incident at Talladega in 2014 and getting dumped at Kansas in 2007 completely derailed his championship hopes under playoff-style conditions. Under the elimination system, recovering from a bad race in a three-week window was nearly impossible.
The return to the 10-race Chase in 2026 bridges the gap between both eras. It preserves postseason drama by resetting the field and grouping the top 16 together, but it removes the artificial single-race shootout finale. If a driver suffers a DNF at Darlington, they aren't mathematically eliminated; they still have nine races to claw their way back, placing the ultimate emphasis on long-term execution, driver resilience, and complete team performance.
Additionally, Ryan Preece's dramatic win in the regular-season finale at Daytona was compared by commentators to a Jeremy Mayfield 2004 OG Chase moment where he won his way in, showing that even with a return to a cumulative format, NASCAR's postseason can still produce authentic, walk-off drama.
The Chase begins when the green flag drops on the Southern 500 at Darlington on Sunday, September 6. Catch all the high-octane action on Sling TV and get ready for 10 weeks of unforgettable racing!