Because of the hype surrounding NASCAR's new Chase format, which replaced the "win and in" four-round, 10-race knockout playoff format that had previously culminated in the winner-take-all Championship 4, a lot of fans simply ignored what remains the sport's biggest flaw.
The actual points structure.
Sure, NASCAR bolstered the value of wins to compensate for the removal of "win and in", making them worth 55 points instead of just 40. But the difference between every other position is just one point.
This means that the difference between finishing second and third is literally the same as the difference between finishing 35th and 36th.
Even worse is the fact that stage racing and stage points still play a role in the equation. Should running in the top 10 on some random lap in early March really have an impact on the championship?
We all know the logical answer is no, yet it does.
Sunday's race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) really exposed that flaw. At the end of the day, the difference between running 10th instead of 11th at the end of a stage is literally the same as the difference between finishing second instead of third at the end of an entire race.
It goes without saying that only one driver wins a race. Winning a race versus finishing second is a 40-point swing. Every other position is just a two-point swing.
In other words, if you're not going to win the race, stage results literally matter just as much as race results. You can technically finish second in total points scored with a 22nd place race finish, simply because of stages. Likewise, you can finish a race in second, but finish outside of the top 10 in total points scored.
Why is this particularly significant in road course races?
Because when drivers pit (or don't pit) at the end of stages during road course races, they know they're not going to lose a lap. They're either giving up stage points for better track position to start the next stage, or giving up track position to start the next stage for stage points.
While that does create somewhat of a split-strategy, every single team knows exactly what is coming and how they want to prepare for it, which ironically decreases the need to actually strategize. It takes something away from the race.
And again, with the difference between any two consecutive top 10 stage positions being the exact difference between any two consecutive non-winning race positions, why bother taking a long-term outlook if you know you're not in contention to win anyway?
If you know you can finish a race second in points just by running well early on, why not take it if that's what's available? After all, under the new format, points, not wins, are what count.
At COTA, it was the fourth place finisher who finished second in points and the ninth place finisher who finished fourth in points. The 21st place finisher finished 15th in points, while the third place finisher only finished sixth, and the sixth place finished only finished ninth.
This is a fundamental flaw with the points system, and it defeats part of the purpose of NASCAR moving back to a format that is based strictly on points, because as things stand right now, points are not based on race results nearly as much as they should be.
And for what it's worth, when the initial Chase format was used from 2004 to 2013, stage racing didn't exist. It's almost like there was a reason for that, and instead of trying to throw it back to that era by simply eliminating "win and in", NASCAR shouldn't have stopped halfway.
NASCAR did experiment with getting rid of stage cautions/breaks during road course races before, but that experiment was short-lived, largely because of how boring the races became.
The two simplest solutions would either be to eliminate stage racing altogether, which would likely result in fewer road courses on the schedule because of how much action only seems to stem from the planned cautions and restarts, or to adjust the points format so that there is actually incentive for drivers who aren't in contention to win to climb the order.
Just look at IndyCar's format and Formula 1's format. Both of those formats are widely respected because the points gained per position increase the higher up the order you get. It's not just about scoring more points; it's about scoring more points, the more you move up. It's almost like the derivative of points scored, in a sense.
There's added incentive to keep moving up, not merely one point per spot from 36th through second that makes drivers question whether or not the next move is worth the coinciding risk of dropping several spots, or even potentially not finishing a race.
Right now, the only way to make up for a poor showing is winning. We talk about "consistency, consistency, consistency", and we talk about "wins shouldn't mean as much", yet consistent top 10 finishes don't even move the needle when it comes to making up for a DNF, simply because of the one-point-per-position structure; only wins do.
At the end of the day, NASCAR's new format was never going to be perfect. But this isn't the first time in 2026 that additional flaws have been uncovered, and hopefully NASCAR doesn't stop making changes just because of the initial fanbase satisfaction with the end of the Championship 4 era.