- Kyle Larson, the points leader in NASCAR’s Chase, says stage points are weighted too close to full race points.
- Jeff Gordon, who helped design the stage system in 2017, defended it while admitting it is not perfect.
- NASCAR has given no sign that stage values will change before the 2026 Chase ends.
A Points Leader Arguing Against the System Carrying Him
Kyle Larson is leading the NASCAR Cup Series championship with more stage points than any other driver in the field, and he still thinks the system handing them out needs fixing. That is the detail that makes his argument hard to wave off as sour grapes. On SiriusXM NASCAR Radio this week, Larson told listeners he isn’t completely against stage points, then spent the next few minutes explaining exactly what bothers him about them. “I’m not completely against it,” Larson said. “I understand why we have it.” His complaint is about how the math lines up: “I feel like second place in a stage shouldn’t be the same as second place in the race points.” A week earlier at Las Vegas, frustrated after leaving points on the table, he put it more bluntly, calling stage points “little participation awards in competition.” Jeff Gordon, the four time Cup champion who now serves as Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman, helped build the system Larson is picking apart. He did not duck the criticism. He also did not agree to scrap it.The Man Who Helped Build It Is Defending It, Carefully
Gordon was part of the committee that created stage racing in 2017, and he still remembers exactly what problem it was supposed to solve. “Yeah, for me I debate it, just because I was a part of the conversations in the committee,” Gordon said. He conceded the format carries real flaws: “But it’s not perfect by any means. And I understand why it exists.” His defense came down to one line that doubles as NASCAR’s whole philosophy on entertainment: “The race was just missing a little bit to keep people engaged. But also it’s an entertainment sport. You always have to remember that.” That tension, a Hall of Fame driver who helped design the rulebook now gently defending it against a reigning champion who is winning under it, is what makes this more than a typical rules gripe. Gordon spent his own career racing for finishes, not stage breaks. He won four championships between 1995 and 2001 under a points system that rewarded little beyond where a driver crossed the line at the end of 500 miles. Larson is racing in a system where both count, and he is still the one questioning whether they should count the same. Larson is not a disgruntled midpack driver looking for an excuse. He enters the final stretch of the 2026 Chase as the reigning Cup Series champion and the points leader, a driver Hendrick Motorsports and NASCAR’s own internal analysis describe as the standard the rest of the garage is chasing. That context changes how his complaint lands. A driver who benefits the most from a rule rarely spends his own radio time arguing it should be weighted differently, which is part of why Gordon chose to engage with the substance of the critique rather than brush it off as a loser’s complaint.Why NASCAR Built Stages in the First Place
Before 2017, a 400 mile race could turn into three hours of nothing happening. Drivers had little reason to take chances for small gains in the middle of a run when the only points that mattered came at the checkered flag. NASCAR split races into stages, paying the top ten finishers in each stage points on a sliding scale from ten down to one, to give drivers a reason to race hard before the final laps instead of coasting home. The format has survived almost a decade, a sign that it solved a problem that was real. The 2026 Chase raised the stakes further. This season’s postseason is a ten race points battle among sixteen drivers, with no eliminations and no point resets, a departure from the twelve years of elimination style playoffs that came before it. Stage points still pay the same ten through one scale, but NASCAR raised the value of a race win from 40 points to 55. Analysts have found that outside the jump from first to second in a stage, each stage point ends up worth roughly one finishing position in the standings, which is exactly the kind of math Larson is pushing back against.A Case Study From the Chase Field
Larson’s argument gets easier to follow with a specific comparison. Through the first four Chase races, Ryan Preece posted three top ten finishes but collected only eight stage points. Larson, over the same stretch, racked up 58. Running consistently near the front for an entire race, in other words, can earn a driver less stage credit than simply being fast at the two moments in a race when the field happens to pause and get scored. Larson has pointed to his own results as proof that a driver can finish well, suffer a late mechanical failure, and still stay within shouting distance of the points lead purely on the strength of stage finishes. That cuts both ways for him. After Las Vegas, Larson said he had left so many stage points on the table that weekend that he could have been sitting on a lead near 50 points instead of a smaller one. He is not complaining as a driver who loses out under the system. He is complaining as the driver benefiting most from it, which is part of why Hendrick and Gordon are listening rather than dismissing him outright.Not Everyone in the Garage Wants Change
Joey Logano sees stage points as a fix for a different problem entirely: a driver who dominates a race for 300 laps only to lose everything to one late mechanical failure or a crash he didn’t cause. In Logano’s view, stage points give that driver something to show for the laps he led, and he argues that is a reason to keep the system rather than tear it down. Carson Hocevar’s take is more about timing than philosophy. Five races into a ten race Chase format, he argues, is too small a sample to judge whether the scoring is actually broken. NASCAR has not signaled any intention to change stage values this postseason, and neither Larson’s comments nor Gordon’s response suggested a rule change was coming before 2027 at the earliest.What Is Actually at Stake
This is not an abstract debate for Larson. He is the reigning Cup Series champion defending his title, and he has been the most consistent driver of the 2026 season under the exact rules he is now questioning. If NASCAR tweaks stage values before next season, how it does so, whether it reduces the point values outright, widens the gap between first and second in a stage, or reweights finishes versus stage breaks, will shape how future champions are built. A sport that spent a decade trying to fix the problem of meaningless middle laps now has its own champion asking whether the fix overcorrected. NASCAR has lived through rules fights like this before. When the sport introduced the original Chase for the Cup in 2004, drivers and crew chiefs spent years arguing over whether a playoff bracket belonged in a sport built on a full season championship. The format survived criticism, then changed shape repeatedly anyway, moving from a ten driver field to twelve, then sixteen, then back toward the current ten race, no elimination model. Stage points are simply the latest piece of that same ongoing argument: how much should a single season reward consistency over a full year, and how much should it reward being fast in the specific moments NASCAR decides to score. Gordon’s answer, in essence, is that NASCAR racing has always been part sport and part show, and stage points are the show’s insurance policy against a boring Tuesday afternoon at the track. Larson’s answer is that insurance policies should not pay out as much as the real thing. Both men have built championships under rules they did not fully control. The real disagreement now is about which rules the next generation of champions should race under, and neither side is backing down to make that decision easy.Sources:
