NASCAR changes playoff requirement for 2023

NASCAR has made a modification to one of the playoff requirements ahead of the 2023 season, a change that affects all three series.

The 2023 NASCAR season is officially scheduled to get underway in just over two weeks, with the Truck Series, Xfinity Series, and Cup Series all set to race at Daytona International Speedway during the third weekend of February.

NASCAR announced several rule changes ahead of the 2023 season, including one modification to the playoff format for all three series.

In the Cup Series, the 16 playoff spots are awarded to the drivers who win the most regular season races. If there aren’t enough race winners to fill the field, the tiebreaker among winless drivers to determine who gets the remaining spots is points.

If there are more than 16 winners, the tiebreaker to determine which single-race winners get in and which don’t is also points. Multi-race winners are all locked in, since there can be no more than 13 of them in the 26-race regular season.

Similar formats are used in both the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series, but with 12 playoff spots in the former and 10 in the latter. The Xfinity Series regular season consists of 26 races and the Truck Series regular season consists of 16.

In the past, wins only locked drivers into the playoffs if the winners ranked high enough in the point standings. In the Cup Series, a winner needed to be ranked inside the top 30 for the win to count toward playoff eligibility, and in the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series, a winner needed to be ranked inside the top 20.

NASCAR has now done away with that playoff requirement for all three series.

Now as long as a driver runs full-time (or is granted a playoff waiver after unexpectedly missing a race or races), a win counts toward playoff eligibility.

Of course, the impact of this rule change probably won’t be all that significant, especially in the Cup Series, where it’s highly unlikely that a race winner will come from outside of the top 30 in the standings.

The Truck Series season is scheduled to get underway with the NextEra Energy 250, which is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET on Friday, February 17. On Saturday, February 18, the Xfinity Series season is scheduled to get underway with the Beef. It’s What For Dinner. 300, which is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET.

Finally, the Cup Series is scheduled to wrap up the weekend and get its season underway on Sunday, February 19 with the 65th annual Daytona 500, which is set to be broadcast live beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET.