Bristol Motor Speedway did not get kicked out of NASCAR’s postseason. It walked out. That distinction matters, and it took an insider to actually spell it out. When NASCAR scrapped the elimination playoff format and brought back the Chase for 2026, Bristol held its spot. Race 3 of 10, September 19, Bass Pro Shops Night Race. All good. But from 2027 onward, it is gone from the postseason entirely. Most people assumed NASCAR made that call. Jordan Bianchi, speaking on Jeff Gluck’s YouTube channel, set the record straight.
“This was a move really coming from the track itself,” Bianchi said. “Saying, hey, listen, this isn’t working for us in the current way it’s going to be now with the Chase. Let’s go back to where it used to be in August.”
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Bristol is in East Tennessee. SEC country. September Saturday nights belong to college football there, and that is not an exaggeration. And without the elimination format giving the race extra stakes, September stopped pulling its weight. Bianchi said it plainly.
“Once NASCAR changed its playoff format to the Chase and got rid of the elimination rounds, the cachet of Bristol being a round one elimination race went away. Part of the challenges that Bristol night race has had since it moved to September is going against college football. That’s a really tough competition to have.”
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Jeff Gluck called the August move the biggest win to come out of all the schedule changes this year. “People liked it there. It was before kids were in school. It feels so much more like the true night race in August,” he said.
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August gives Bristol a clean run, largely avoiding the heart of the college football season. In 2027, New Hampshire Motor Speedway takes the September postseason slot. Bristol takes August 14 back.
For anyone still catching up on the format change, here is the short version. The old playoff system ran from 2014 to 2025. Drivers got knocked out every three races in bracket-style elimination rounds. It was dramatic, it was divisive, and NASCAR finally killed it.
The 2026 Chase is 10 races, 16 drivers, all running the full stretch. No one gets eliminated mid-postseason. Total points after all 10 races decide the champion. To make sure winning still means something without knockout pressure, NASCAR bumped race win points from 40 to 55. That is a 20-point gap over second place, every single race.
The postseason opens at Darlington on September 6, then runs through Gateway, Bristol, Kansas, Las Vegas, the Charlotte Roval, Phoenix, Talladega, and Martinsville before the finale at Homestead-Miami.
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Bristol gets one last September in that lineup. Then it is done with the postseason for good, on its own terms, heading back to where it always made the most sense.
Bianchi saw this coming from the moment the format changed.
“You looked at it and said, Bristol’s time as a Chase race was probably going to be short. And that was exactly the case.”
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