2026 NASCAR Draft Kit: What to Watch For

Before we can fill out our cheat sheets or prepare our draft strategies for the upcoming 2026 NASCAR season, there are many changes that we need to take into account in order to be prepared for any fantasy racing league. We're going to take an in-depth look at some of these changes that we'll see and some that aren't so apparent when the engines fire up at Daytona in February.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Driver Changes

Thanks to less than usual silly season movement and free agent driver signings, we have just a handful of different drivers that have moved to new teams in 2026. We typically see some smaller teams shut down or even new ones start, but that is not the case for this upcoming season. In fact, this is about the "lightest" off-season of driver and team movement we've seen in some time. Outlined below is a short list of drivers who have either swapped teams or been promoted from lower divisions of NASCAR to compete in the top division this year.

Driver                               New Team                                            Old Team                                

Daniel Suarez                 #7 Spire Motorsports                         #99 Trackhouse Racing

Connor Zilisch                 #88 Trackhouse Racing                     #88 O'Reilly Series

Shane van Gisbergen     #97 Trackhouse Racing                     #88 Trackhouse Racing

2026 NASCAR Schedule Changes

The schedule has a number of tweaks and new events added for the 2026 season. It starts with the venue for this season's All-Star Race. After a three-season run at North Wilkesboro Speedway and a three-season run at various tracks prior to that, NASCAR has picked a new venue for the 2026 All-Star Race. This coming May, Dover Motor Speedway will host its first ever All-Star weekend. The Monster Mile will be the backdrop for this intriguing exhibition race. Both the Open and Main race will be run on the afternoon of May 17 in Dover. This is a pretty radical shakeup to recent All-Star installments and will stir some interest with the venue change. 

As for the regular season, we get a new event for 2026 as NASCAR drops the Mexico City Father's Day weekend racing at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and adds a new street circuit at Naval Base Coronado. The sanctioning body worked with the local authorities and devised a layout of street racing that encompasses 3.4-miles and 16 turns of layout on the naval base at Coronado Island.  This new event will happen on Father's Day weekend and causes the Pocono Raceway event to be moved up one week earlier in June. 

As far as the layout of the schedule is concerned, we have multiple dates/tracks shuffling in the order compared to last season. It will be difficult to get a handle on where the Cup Series is going week-to-week due to these changes, so we suggest keeping a 2026 schedule handy. The historical norms of where and when NASCAR races used to be set in stone, but they're really shuffling the deck this season with multiple changes. 

As for the playoffs, Daytona remains the cut-race to make the 10-race playoff. The playoffs will drop the New Hampshire date and move it to the pnultimate race of the regular season. Taking its place will be Homestead-Miami Speedway which returns to the season finale. That change results in Phoenix shuffling up from the finale and into mid-October. Homestead-Miami Speedway hasn't served as the championship crowing race since 2019 and it will resume that distinction in 2026.

As NASCAR continues to change and evolve, so does the Cup Series schedule. The upcoming season offers some new events and some returning old events in a jam-packed 36-event calendar, plus exhibition races. Unlike 2025, there will be two off-weekends built into the schedule to help break up the grueling run of season-long racing. The previous schedule had featured only one off-weekend so that will be a welcome change to both teams and drivers alike.   

2026 NASCAR Playoff Format Changes 

NASCAR will return to "The Chase" in 2026. This 10-race postseason style was previously used from 2004-2013. Gone is the elimination style format which has been in place since 2014. Both teams and fans great frustrated with having the championship decided at one race and one certain style of track. 

What will also be removed in 2026 is the "Win and In" format. The Top 16 drivers in points after 26 races will qualify for the Chase. While it will remove some drama of drivers 25+ in points potentially winning late in the regular season and getting into the postseason, this will certainly create the most deserving and competitive playoff field for that last 10-race dash.

The driver who scores the most points after the regular season will start the Chase will a 25-point buffer over second place at 2,100 points. Second will begin the Chase at 2,075 points, with third at 2,065 and a five-point drop for each position after all the way down to the No. 16 seed at 2,000. While it's not the full-season format that many fans wanted to return to, this version of The Chase is probably the best hybrid of a full-season and playoff format. If you run strong in the regular season you will be rewarded with a cushion to start the Chase. After 10 races whoever scores the most points will be the champion. 

In an attempt to make wins feel significant after the removal of "Win and In", NASCAR has increased the point allotment for winning a race from 40 points to 55 points. The addition of those 15 points for winning a race could certainly help boost drivers in the standings as they look to make a late push towards the playoffs, or a late push at the championship in the Chase. 

After more than a decade of using the current playoff format, fan and driver discontentment with the system reached a zenith in 2025. NASCAR could no longer continue down this road as this discontentment dominated the social and corporate media space and sagging tv viewership of the playoffs seemed to backup or underscore the fan component of this discontentment.   

New NASCAR Venue Added For 2026

In cooperation with the Navy base at Coronado Island, NASCAR announced this new event last July. All three top racing series will compete on this street layout June 19-21, 2026. This event effectively replaces the Mexico City event from the 2025 calendar. 

NASCAR released a map and renderings of what the circuit will look like last October. It's a street course very similar to what NASCAR had done in Chicago for the past three years. The layout is a challenging 3.4-mile, 16-turn course on the base at Coronado Island. It will provide high speed straights, hairpin corners and some of the most awe-inspiring views of any racing circuit. Turn 5 has already been nicknamed "Carrier Corner" as it will feature two docked aircraft carriers in the turn's background. NASCAR has yet to announce the stages or total laps for any of the three events planned that weekend at Coronado Island, but those details should be coming sometime early in the 2026 season.

NASCAR continues to look for ways to come up with new race events and bring to the sport to new markets and new fans. The races at both Chicago and Mexico City the past few seasons are an illustration of this. The Coronado Island race is just another example of these continued efforts to expand the fanbase and open new markets. There's no word on NASCAR racing this circuit beyond the 2026 season, and we're sure that will largely be dependent on the success and reception this first race receives. If all goes well, the sanctioning body could close a deal here that keeps NASCAR returning to this naval base for the foreseeable future.

New Series Sponsorship in 2026

NASCAR's second tier division will get a new primary sponsor in 2026. Xfinity had the naming rights for this division since the 2015 season, but now their lengthy run is over. O'Reilly Auto Parts signed a multi-year agreement with NASCAR and will now have the naming rights for this series moving forward. The newly branded NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series will take to the track in February at Daytona and cover the 33-event schedule in the upcoming season. The new title sponsor has deep and lengthy ties in NASCAR and made a perfect choice to follow in the footsteps of Xfinity for this division of NASCAR. The O'Reilly Series features an interesting mix of young talent and seasoned veterans who battle weekly for race wins and the series championship in a highly competitive environment. 

New Regulations for the Next Gen Car in 2026

The sanctioning body decided to tweak the technical regulations for the shorter tracks in the upcoming season. NASCAR will move to a 750-horse power package for the engine which is a significant boost over the 670 it employed last season and still does employ at non-short tracks. The tracks that qualify are: Martinsville, Bristol, Darlington, Dover, Nashville, Richmond, New Hampshire, Phoenix and Gateway. The move is hoped to increase power and the ability to pass on these smaller ovals. The superspeedway ovals of Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta will still use the reduced 510-horsepower package to limit top speeds and for safety.