Denny Hamlin is leading the Cup Series by 68 points. He has four wins. His average finish on non-drafting ovals this season is 3.64, a number nobody in this sport has posted since Richard Petty in 1977. By every measure, 2026 is the Hamlin season NASCAR fans have been waiting decades to see. But the one trophy he was about to win no longer exists.
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On his Actions Detrimental podcast, co-host Jared brought up the regular season lead almost gleefully. Hamlin confirmed the 68-point gap, the 84 over Blaney, and then the conversation hit a wall.
“They don’t want me to be a champion.”
Turns out, as part of NASCAR’s off-season overhaul, the regular season title was abolished. No trophy or formal title. The driver leading the standings at season’s end is now just called the top playoff seed.
“I’m pretty sure, Jared, that as part of the press release for the new playoff format, the regular season title is gone,” Denny Hamlin said. “So there is no regular season champion anymore.”
Jared did not take it well: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s incredible,” Hamlin said. “The one time you win the regular season, they get rid of it.”
The scrapped title is just the most visible part of a complete teardown of how the championship works. Gone is the elimination bracket, the format where one bad race could end a title run built over nine months.
In its place, NASCAR brought back The Chase: a ten-race stretch at the end of the season where total points accumulated across all ten races decide the champion. No rounds. No cuts. Just run well, keep running well, and whoever has the most points after Homestead wins.
The bankable playoff points system is also dead. Previously, every stage win and race win during the regular season added points to a personal bank carried into the postseason. That bank was a lifeline, a cushion against a blown engine or a lap-one wreck at the wrong track. It is gone now. Everyone resets.
The top 16 drivers enter the Chase with staggered points. First place starts at 2,100. Second at 2,075. Third at 2,065. Every position after that drops by five, down to 2,000 for the 16th seed. Leading the regular season gets you a 25-point head start, just not a name for it.
To make up for removing the automatic playoff bids that came with winning, NASCAR made wins worth more. A race win now pays 55 base points, up from 40. Second place gets 35. That 20-point swing between first and second is the biggest it has ever been. Win the race and sweep both stages and you walk away with 76 points in a single afternoon.
Here is what makes this sting for Hamlin specifically. Under the old system, four wins and a summer stretch that included three consecutive wins would have built a playoff points bank so large that almost nothing could have touched him. A bad day at Talladega, a pit road penalty at Bristol, it would not have mattered. The bank would have absorbed it.
That cushion does not exist anymore. His 68-point regular season lead becomes a 25-point edge when the Chase begins. After that, it is the same race for everyone. He knows it too.
“If we can keep this momentum going and avoid bad luck, I think it’ll be hard for the field to catch us,” Denny Hamlin said. “But you never know what kind of wreck you can get caught up in.”