NASCAR Cup Series · History

Three drivers share the record for NASCAR Cup Series championships: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson, with seven titles each. Petty also holds the record for career wins, with 200, and for wins in a single season, 27 in 1967. The Cup Series is NASCAR’s top stock car division, run by the sanctioning body founded by Bill France Sr., and it has raced in the United States since 1949. It has changed its name several times to match its title sponsor and has tried several systems to decide the champion. Since 2022 it has raced the Next Gen car, with Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota as manufacturers.

Origins: the Strictly Stock division

The first Strictly Stock race was held on June 19, 1949, at Charlotte Speedway. Glenn Dunaway took the checkered flag but was disqualified for altering his car’s rear springs, and the win went to Jim Roper. Red Byron became the first champion that same year. In 1950 the division was renamed Grand National, a name it kept until 1970. Herb Thomas was the first driver to win two titles, in 1951 and 1953. The first Daytona 500 was run in February 1959: Johnny Beauchamp was initially declared the winner, but a review of finish-line photographs about three days later gave the victory to Lee Petty, by less than a yard.

The Grand National years and the move to Winston Cup

On December 1, 1963, at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Wendell Scott became the first Black driver to win a race in the top division. Officials first flagged Buck Baker as the winner, and Scott’s family did not receive the original trophy until 2021. Four years later Richard Petty put together the most prolific season on record: 27 wins in 1967, ten of them in a row between August and October. In 1971 the series took the name Winston Cup, and 1972 is regarded as the start of the modern era, following sponsorship changes and a shorter schedule. Since 1982 the Daytona 500 has been the first points race of the season. Petty earned his 200th win at Daytona in 1984.

The names of the 21st century

The Winston Cup name lasted until 2003. It was followed by the Nextel Cup (2004-2007), the Sprint Cup (2008-2016) and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (2017-2019); since 2020 it has been known simply as the NASCAR Cup Series. In 2002 Homestead-Miami became the venue of the season finale, a role it held until 2019. Toyota joined in 2007, the same season the Car of Tomorrow made its debut at Bristol. The charter system, which guarantees a starting spot to the teams that hold one, was announced in 2016, and the Next Gen, the seventh-generation car, arrived in 2022.

From the Chase to the playoffs

The Chase for the Cup was introduced in 2004: the top ten drivers in the standings fought for the title over the last ten races. Under that system Jimmie Johnson won five straight championships, from 2006 to 2010. In January 2014 NASCAR replaced it with an elimination format featuring 16 drivers, four rounds and a four-driver showdown at Homestead; Kevin Harvick was the first champion under those rules. In January 2017 the word Chase was dropped in favor of “playoffs,” and that same year races were split into three stages. From 2020 to 2025 the championship race was held at Phoenix. In 2022 Daniel Suárez won at Sonoma on June 12, becoming the first Mexican-born driver to win in the series and the fifth winner born outside the United States.

The return of the Chase in 2026

For 2026 NASCAR brought back the Chase name and scrapped the elimination rounds: the top 16 after the Daytona race that closes the regular season contest the final ten events, and the driver with the most points at the end is champion. The finale returned to Homestead-Miami on November 8, 2026. Ryan Blaney won the race ahead of Tyler Reddick and William Byron, but the title had already been settled: Kyle Larson clinched it by finishing fourth in the first stage. It was his third championship, after 2021 and 2025, and the first back-to-back title for any driver since Johnson in 2010.