Championship History

Grand National

From 1950 through 1971, the top tier NASCAR series was called the Grand National, not to be confused with the current Busch Grand National Series, the second tier division of NASCAR.

Winston Cup

From 1972 through 2003, the NASCAR premier series was called the Winston Cup Series. It was called this, as it was sponsored by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (RJR) as an advertising mechanisim, to bring attention to one of their brands of cigarettes.

NEXTEL Cup

In 2003, RJR dropped its sponsorship of the top series, and NASCAR obtained a sponsorship from NEXTEL, a telecommunications company. Starting in 2004, the premier series was known as the NEXTEL Cup.

The merger between Sprint and NEXTEL will result in the series being renamed Sprint Cup in 2007.

Chase for the Cup

Prior to the 2004 season, a series of rules and scoring changes resulted in a new formula for declaring a series champion. After 26 races, the top 10 drivers in points (plus any driver within 400 points of the leader who may be outside the top 10) are placed in the Chase for the Championship. Eligible drivers' points are elevated to a level mathematically unattainable by anyone outside this field. Points are also bunched together in 5-point increments so the leader is 5 points ahead of second place, 10 points ahead of third place, all the way to 45 points ahead of 10th place, continuing in 5-point increments if there are more than 10 drivers in the chase. Race layouts remain the same and points are scored the same way in the final 10 races. Whoever leads in points after the 36th race is declared the NEXTEL Cup champion.

This playoff system was implemented primarily to increase television ratings during the National Football League season, and to make the points race more competitive. Previously, the champion may have been decided before the last race (or even several races before the end of the season) because it was mathematically impossible for any other driver to gain enough points.