As a part of NASCAR's new revenue sharing agreement, Cup Series teams are now limited to three charters each. The previous limit was four. Charters guarantee each team an entry into every race on the 36-race schedule and come with several other benefits, specifically financially.
However, that rule only applies to teams that did not previously run four charters. Four-car teams Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing are effectively "grandfathered in" as four-car teams and are still allowed to run four chartered entries for as long as they opt to continue doing so.
Former four-car team Stewart-Haas Racing would have been an exemption as well, but they shut down after the 2024 season.
All other teams restricted to three charters
One of Stewart-Haas Racing's four charters went to team co-owner Gene Haas to run the new Haas Factory Team while three others went to existing two-car teams to turn them into three-car teams: Trackhouse Racing, 23XI Racing, and Front Row Motorsports.
Teams that run three chartered entries are still allowed to run a fourth car as a non-chartered (open) entry, meaning that, for instance, 23XI Racing could have entered a fourth car in the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
However, open entries come without the benefits of being guaranteed a spot in the starting lineup (barring a "world-class driver" provisional being issued, like we have seen with Trackhouse Racing).
This marks a slight change in this policy, as teams with the maximum allowable number of charters when the limit was four were previously restricted from running an extra non-chartered (open) entry in each race.
All things considered, however, any given team on any given weekend can still run up to four cars.
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