After Sunday's Cook Out 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, Fox Sports was forced to quickly retract a graphic of the updated NASCAR Cup Series standings that was completely incorrect – but might have been an early April Fool's Day joke.
Instead of showing the top 10 drivers in the actual point standings, the graphic listed the top 10 drivers based on car number, and the point values shown were the point values which aligned with those of the top 10 in the standings, but after the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two weekends prior.
For example, the driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, Ross Chastain, was listed as the points leader with 255 points, which is the number of points that 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, the actual points leader, had earned this season from the season-opening Daytona 500 through the Las Vegas race.
NASCAR standings shown after Martinsville race
Rank | Driver | Points | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ross Chastain | 255 | 0 |
2 | Austin Cindric | 194 | -61 |
3 | Austin Dillon | 188 | -67 |
4 | Noah Gragson | 177 | -78 |
5 | Kyle Larson | 168 | -87 |
6 | Brad Keselowski | 164 | -91 |
7 | Daniel Suarez | 157 | -98 |
8 | Kyle Busch | 157 | -98 |
9 | Chase Elliott | 146 | -109 |
10 | Ty Dillon | 140 | -115 |
While drivers such as Chastain, Noah Gragson, Kyle Busch, and Ty Dillon, who are actually 19th, 29th, 24th, and 32nd in the point standings, respectively, would have been totally fine with this iteration of the points chart, the mistake was quickly corrected.
As soon as the graphic appeared on-screen, and commentator Chris Myers realized as soon as he started to say "Ross Chastain" that something was off, the Fox Sports team realized it was incorrect and proceeded to post the correct order with updated point values following the Martinsville race, with Reddick still up top by 82 points over Team Penske's Ryan Blaney.
Reddick has led the standings the entire season thus far, having opened up the year with three straight victories before adding a fourth win at Darlington Raceway.
Full Cup Series point standings can be found here.
Given how spreadsheets work when it comes to sorting, it's a forgivable error; we know from experience. But it did lead to some initial confusion.
Fox Sports proceeded to go down the order, not just the top 10. The top 16 drivers in the point standings at the end of the 26-race regular season are the 16 drivers who are set to qualify for the 10-race "Chase" playoffs; there is no more "win and in".
The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season's eighth race is the Food City 500, which is set to be shown live on Fox Sports 1 from Bristol Motor Speedway starting at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 12. The series has off this weekend for Easter. Start a free trial of FuboTV and catch all of the action!