NASCAR Scoring: Driver Points Vs. Owner Points
All of us racing fans hear about the NASCAR points system such as who’s a head, who’s qualifying or not, but how much of it do we really understand or know about?
There are two separate systems used by NASCAR. One for the drivers and one for the owners. Some might think the point system for both are the same but in actuality there not.
For the drivers, every race on the circuit is awarded the same amount of points no matter if it’s the Daytona 500 or the Watkins Glen. So as a driver, you really don’t want to skip any race but sometimes you have to, or you’ll skip it because it fits into a strategy you’re going with.
The points for the 26 races are totaled and the top 10 are automatically entered into the Chase for the Cup. These ten drivers are also eligible for bonus points that they won for the 26 races too. These would include things like leading laps and most lead laps for the race. The last two spots are awarded to the 2 drivers with the most wins who are not in the top ten, but are in the top 20 in points and this will complete the Chase.
The Owners points come from qualifying laps and are determined by time rather than MPH. NASCAR just takes the distance, in miles of the track, divides this by the total number of seconds to complete a lap, and multiply this by 60 twice which gives the MPH for the lap.
The Owners points determine the starting positions for that weeks race which use to be set by a draw but was revised in 2011 by NASCAR.
