NASCAR fans got their wish with the offseason overhaul of the postseason format, ending the 12-year run of the "win and in" knockout Championship 4 playoff format that had become one of the single most criticized elements of the sport's modern era.
Despite removing the "win and in" element of the postseason, NASCAR boosted the value of wins from 40 points to 55, and because of it, 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick has a massive lead.
Reddick became the sixth driver in Cup Series history to win the first two races of a season when he won at Daytona International Speedway and EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta Motor Speedway) to start the year, and he became the first driver in the sport's 78-year history to win the first three races of a season when he added a victory at Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
He ended his two-race win drought, which featured finishes of eighth at Phoenix Raceway and 13th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with a victory on Sunday at Darlington Raceway, and he owns a massive 95-point lead in the standings over Team Penske's Ryan Blaney because of it. He has led the standings after each of the season's first six races.
Add us as a preferred source on GoogleTyler Reddick not officially guaranteed NASCAR playoff spot
However, the driver of the No. 45 Toyota hasn't yet officially clinched a playoff spot, even though, with a 186-point lead over the cut line between the 16th and 17th place drivers, he shouldn't have too much to worry about.
Under the previous format, Reddick would have been locked into the playoffs after winning in Atlanta. His Daytona 500 win technically would not have been enough, since there are 26 regular season races and 16 playoff spots.
The 16 playoff spots used to be awarded to the regular season champion and the 15 drivers who ranked highest in wins, with the tiebreaker among single-race winners (or non-winners) to round out the postseason field being points.
Notably, only 13 drivers could win multiple regular season races, meaning that a driver needed to win twice, not just once, to clinch a spot this early in the season.
With points and points alone set to determine this year's 16-driver playoff field, there is no way for a driver to mathematically clinch a spot this early, or even at any point over the next couple of months.
The 2026 season's other two winners, Blaney at Phoenix and Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin at Las Vegas, are second and fourth in points. They trail Reddick by 95 points and 122 points, respectively, and are 91 and 64 points above the cut line, also having yet to officially lock themselves in.
The regular season standings also determine playoff seeding, with bonus points awarded to each driver before the start of the 10-race "Chase", depending on their regular season finish. The regular season champion is awarded 100 extra points, which is 25 more than are awarded to the runner-up.
A full breakdown of those bonuses, which effectively replaced playoff points, can be found here.
The seventh race on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Cook Out 400, which is set to be shown live on Fox Sports 1 from Martinsville Speedway starting at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 29. Start a free trial of FuboTV and catch all of the action from the Ridgeway, Virginia oval!