Five Changes You Need to Know Ahead of The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Season

AUSTIN, TEXAS - MARCH 23: William Byron, driver of the #24 RaptorTough.com Chevrolet, Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, and Michael McDowell, driver of the #34 Love's Travel Stops Ford, drive during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 23, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

What’s Happening?

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Season is right around the corner. While there are changes before every NASCAR season, this year feels unlike any other. The sport is making major changes in 2025; and while there are many, here are five must-know changes ahead of the 2025 NASCAR season.

No More Camaro

One of the key storylines heading into 2024 was the discontinuation of Camaro production and the questions surrounding how Chevrolet or General Motors would introduce a replacement body moving forward.

While fans pitched ideas such as the Chevy Malibu and Cadillac CT5, they awaited the new body design for 2025. However, as the season grew close to the playoffs, there was no news about what the manufacturer would do.

But in a turn of events, a diecast preview in early September revealed the answer to fans’ questions.

The mock-up of Ross Chastain’s 2025 Busch Light scheme showed that the word Camaro was removed from the rear bumper and replaced with “CHEVROLET.” While the ZL1 remains, the Camaro branding is gone entirely; Chevy is also removing the Camaro branding from its Xfinity Series cars this season.

New Places, Not so New Faces

As part of a new media rights deal, the NASCAR Cup Series has two new homes for 2025. FOX and NBC will maintain their traditional open and close to the season. However, Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports are sandwiched in the middle.

While TNT is familiar ground for NASCAR, the streaming options of Max, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service, which will simulcast TNT’s races, and Amazon Prime Video are new territory for NASCAR. The schedule breaks down with FOX/FS1 and NBC/USA broadcasting fifteen races each as Prime Video and TNT/Max broadcast five apiece.

  • FOX: Races 1 through 12; All four exhibition races
  • Prime: Races 13 through 17
  • TNT/Max: Races 18 through 22
  • NBC: Races 23 through 36; The entire Playoffs

The new platforms will also have familiar faces in the booth as current NBC analyst Steve Letarte joins his former co-analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr. and former FOX play-by-play talent Adam Alexander in the booth.

TNT’s Midseason Tournament

Along with TNT’s portion of NASCAR coverage comes a new portion of the NASCAR schedule. TNT will host a $1 million 32-driver tournament throughout its five-race schedule.

The final three races on Prime Video — Mexico City, Michigan, and Pocono — will qualify drivers for the new tournament. This will be handled by tracking the finishes of both full-time and part-time drivers to decide the seeding of the bracket.

Each round is a single race, starting at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Jun. 28. In each race, a driver will square off against another, and the driver with the better finish advances to the next round. Overall, the schedule looks like this:

  • June 28: Atlanta Motor Speedway – 32 Drivers
  • July 6: Chicago Street Circuit – 16 Drivers
  • July 13: Sonoma Raceway – 8 Drivers
  • July 20: Dover Motor Speedway – 4 Drivers
  • July 27: Indianapolis Motor Speedway – 2 Drivers

Fans are mostly excited about this format. The diverse schedule and the head-to-head matchups create the potential for an upset.

Practice and Qualifying

Ahead of this season, NASCAR is creating a new, consistent format for practice and qualifying.

Last season, NASCAR introduced what fans consistently said was a confusing new qualifying format consisting of two rounds for two groups to qualify for different rows rather than a meshed field. For example, a driver from Group A would qualify for the outside row, while a driver from Group B would qualify for the inside row.

To make it even more confusing, NASCAR left the Xfinity and Truck Series out of this new format. However, for the 2025 season, NASCAR will reintroduce a non-round or traditional qualifying format for all three series with almost no differences. The new qualifying for all three series looks like this:

  • Intermediate Tracks: One Lap – One Round
  • Superspeedways: One Lap – Two Rounds
  • Short Tracks: Two Laps – One Round
  • Road Courses: One Round Two Groups – 20 Min. Per Group

As part of the new TV deal, aside from FOX’s coverage of Clash, Daytona 500, and All-Star Race practice and qualifying, Prime Video will have coverage for the first half of the season, and TruTV and Max will cover the second half.

New Charter Limits

Last season, one of the most interesting storylines was the 2025 NASCAR Charter Agreement negotiations. After a dramatic ending to negotiations in which two teams refused to sign and ultimately held out and sued NASCAR, this story remains incomplete as dominoes from the agreement will fall for months and possibly years to come.

The latest update is the new agreement limits teams from expanding beyond three Charters. This means that a team that currently has three Charters cannot lease or buy another Charter.

Fortunately, for the final two teams that own four Charters, Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, they will be grandfathered into the new system. This rule change also means that the only Cup Series teams able to expand with a Chartered entry are:

  • Haas Factory Team – Owns One Charter
  • Hyak Motorsports – Owns One Charter
  • Kaulig Racing – Owns Two Charters
  • Legacy Motor Club – Owns Two Charters
  • RFK Racing – Owns Two Charters, Leasing one from RWR
  • Richard Childress Racing – Owns Two Charters
  • Rick Ware Racing – Owns Two Charters, Leasing one to RFK
  • Wood Brothers Racing – Owns One Charter

Charters allow teams valuable revenue sharing with NASCAR and automatic entry into every points race. This change follows a year of wild Charter news in which the four Charter-owning Stewart-Haas Racing closed.


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DARLINGTON, SOUTH CAROLINA - APRIL 06: Kyle Larson, driver of the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on April 06, 2025 in Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

Lionel Racing Reveals First Wave of 2026 NASCAR Authentics Diecast

What’s Happening?

Lionel Racing finally confirmed the first wave of 2026 NASCAR Authentics 1:64 scale diecast for Monday morning, with the line of retail-exclusive diecast featuring a new look for the new year.

  • This line will include six throwback paint schemes from NASCAR’s 2025 throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway. Though they did not release one in 2025, this move restarts an annual tradition of Lionel releasing at least one wave of cars carrying the colors of that prior season’s throwback designs.
  • Included in this wave of cars are Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, William Byron, and Sammy Smith. Alongside these paint schemes’ debuts in the Authentics line is a new design for the packaging of the 2026 line of NASCAR Authentics.
  • Last season was somewhat turbulent for Lionel as, alongside issues with tariffs, the brand only released three waves of NASCAR Autentics, one wave of NASCAR Autentics Winners Circle diecast, and two waves of Haulers.
  • Lionel announcing the first wave of 2026 early on in the new year is perhaps a sign that 2026 could return this line to its regular release schedule. The post from Lionel Racing also confirmed that the brand will announce another wave by the end of the week, further hinting at a recommitment to the Authentics line.

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SPARTA, KY - JUNE 26: Chase Pistone, driver of the #9 NTS Motorsports Chevrolet, talks with his crew during practice for the NASCAR Camping World Series UNOH 225 at Kentucky Speedway on June 26, 2014 in Sparta, Kentucky. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

Chase Pistone, NASCAR Trucks and Nationwide Series Driver, Passes Away

What’s Happening?

Chase Pistone, a former competitor on the short track racing circuit in addition to NASCAR’s National Series, has passed away. Pistone, now a successful Legends Car owner, was 42.

  • Chase’s brothers Nick and Tom Pistone confirmed the North Carolina natives’ passing to LegendsNation.com. The cause of Pistone’s passing is unknown. The family asked that media share the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline number, which is 988.
  • Pistone, the grandson of NASCAR legend “Tiger” Tom Pistone, made his way to NASCAR after competing on short tracks in Legends cars and Late Models. He would make his jump to NASCAR via the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2005, racing for Green Light Racing at Martinsville Speedway.
  • Pistone would continue his NASCAR pursuits in 2006, racing in ARCA and the NASCAR Busch Series. Unfortunately, these two starts, at Martinsville with the Busch Series and Iowa with ARCA, would be his last for nearly a decade.
  • Pistone returned to NASCAR in 2014, racing in a combined eight NASCAR Camping World Truck and Nationwide Series races. During this season, his final in NASCAR, the then 30-year-old scored his best National Series finish, ninth place in the Truck Series annual trip to Gateway.

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8 Takeaways From NASCAR At COTA

Three races in, the 2026 season is finally starting to show its hand. COTA shifted narratives, exposed weaknesses, and raised new questions about contenders, pretenders, and everything in between.

  • Has Shane van Gisbergen officially been proven mortal after getting outraced late at Circuit of the Americas?
  • Is 19-year-old Connor Zilisch already ahead of schedule after slicing through the field multiple times?
  • With three straight wins, is Tyler Reddick basically a lock for the postseason this early?
  • And how concerned should the 48 team be after a rough weekend for Alex Bowman?

From substitute drivers being forced into action to points gaps growing faster than expected, COTA delivered more than just a road course chess match. There were momentum swings, reputation hits, and at least one young driver stacking up enemies before stacking up results.

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