The Green Flag Drops on the Real Start of the Racing Year

There’s an argument to be made that the racing season already began two weeks ago with the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Endurance racing purists will correctly point out that nothing says “new year” quite like GTPs, LMP2s and GTSs pounding around the World Center of Racing’s road course for 24 straight hours. And they’re not wrong.

But for the broader motorsports world — and especially for stock car fans — this coming weekend’s Daytona 500 is the moment when the 2026 racing season truly, unmistakably begins.

The Daytona 500 is different. It’s not just a race; it’s a ceremonial green flag that launches roughly 40 consecutive weekends of racing across the globe. From NASCAR to Formula 1, MotoGP, IMSA, IndyCar and Indy NXT, MotoAmerica, World Superbike, and more, the calendar becomes a relentless rhythm of engines, tire, and entry performance that won’t really slow down until late fall.

Once Daytona happens, there is almost always something racing somewhere, every single weekend.

That’s why, even with the Rolex 24 in the rearview mirror, the Daytona 500 still feels like sport’s true kickoff.

Ironically, the NASCAR season technically began last weekend — and in perhaps the strangest way imaginable.

On February 5, 2026, the NASCAR Cup Series Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium rewrote the record book, not for speed, but for the complete lack of it. The non-points exhibition race, held on the historic ¼-mile oval in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, became the slowest race in Cup Series history. A snow-delayed start, combined with constant cautions. mid-race sleet, "wet weather tires" and stop-and-go rhythm, turned what should have been a short-track spectacle into an endurance event of a different kind.

When the checkered flag finally flew, Ryan Preece emerged as the winner of a 200-lap, 50-mile race that took 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 5 seconds to complete. The average speed? Just 21.39 mph.

That bizarre, crawling start to the season sets up a perfect contrast as the series heads south to Daytona Beach for the “Great American Race.”  

If the non-points Bowman Gray Clash represented the absolute floor of NASCAR speed, Daytona represents its historical ceiling.

Forty-six years ago, in 1980, Buddy Baker won the Daytona 500 at an average speed of 177.602 mph (in an Oldsmobile),to set the record as the fastest Daytona 500 ever run.

It was an era of minimal aerodynamic restriction, raw horsepower, and drivers muscling massive 'stock' cars around the high banks with little margin for error and even less concern for safety by modern standards. That record still stands today, not because cars can’t go faster, but because the rules no longer allows them to.

Modern NASCAR Cup cars are, in many ways, faster than ever. They accelerate harder, corner flatter, and are engineered with a level of precision that Buddy Baker’s generation could only dream of. But raw speed is no longer the point — especially at Daytona and Talladega. Rules are written to promote pack racing, drafting, and close competition, not runaway velocity. The result is what fans now know all too well: “drafting races” where inches matter, momentum is everything, and one small mistake can trigger “The Big One,” a multi-car crash that can wipe out half the field in seconds.

It’s racing with no room for error by design. And NASCAR enforces that philosophy down to the smallest aerodynamic detail.

Consider one of the lesser-known but telling rule changes heading into 2026: drivers are now strictly prohibited from using their hands — or anything attached to them — to redirect airflow through the window net during qualifying. Any violation results in a disallowed lap time.

That rule exists for a very specific reason. In early 2024, Joey Logano was fined $10,000 and penalized by NASCAR after qualifying at Atlanta when officials discovered he had used a modified, non-SFI-approved left-hand glove. The glove featured webbing between the fingers, a “Spider-Man”-style design intended to block airflow from entering the driver’s window. Less air inside the car meant less drag — and more speed.

It was clever. It was subtle. And it was legal.

NASCAR’s response was swift and definitive: no more gray area. The rulebook now makes it crystal clear that the driver’s body cannot be used as an aerodynamic device. It’s a reminder that even in an era dominated by safety advancements and spec parts, teams will still search relentlessly for microscopic advantages — and NASCAR will remain equally relentless in shutting them down.

That push-and-pull between innovation and enforcement will matter more than ever in 2026, because the stakes have been raised dramatically under NASCAR’s new points and championship format.

Beginning this season, a race win is worth 55 NASCAR points, up from 40. That alone makes every victory more valuable, especially early in the year. But the bigger change is philosophical: NASCAR has scrapped the long-standing “win-and-in” system. A single victory — even the Daytona 500 — no longer guarantees a spot in the postseason. Instead, drivers must finish in the top 16 in points after 26 races to qualify for the Chase.

In other words, Daytona still matters enormously, but it is no longer a golden ticket. Consistency is back in fashion. Survival matters. A driver who wins Daytona but crashes out repeatedly in the spring, summer, and fall could still miss the playoffs entirely.

For the 2026 season, NASCAR is returning to a 10-race "Chase" postseason format for the Cup Series, dropping the elimination-style playoff system used from 2014-2025. The new format features 16 drivers competing over the final 10 races based on total points, emphasizing season-long consistency rather than "win and you're in" eliminations.

And it all begins with the Daytona 500 -- "The Great American Race."