NASCAR Killed the Rainout Formula That Made Qualifying a Lottery. Dodge Returns With Zero Owner Points to Its Name

NASCAR spent a few days this month making three announcements that look unrelated. Dodge is coming back to the Cup Series with Kaulig Racing. Ryan Preece is getting the No. 6 at RFK Racing. And when rain wipes out qualifying, the starting order will go back to owner points alone. Different stories, same message: the sport is leaning on continuity, and the manufacturer everyone is cheering for arrives with none of it.

The rainout fix is the real rule story

This season, a rained-out Cup Series weekend was settled by a formula that weighed 70 percent of a driver’s previous finish and 30 percent of owner points. Practice and qualifying were canceled at Darlington, Bristol and Kansas, and the formula did the rest. Six of the 16 Chase drivers started 20th or worse at both Darlington and Bristol, and at Kansas Ryan Blaney rolled off 25th. We walked through how that order was built after Kansas, and the math looked less like a competition tool than a weekly lottery run on last Sunday’s mood.

NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell has since said the formula dates back to the COVID era and that nobody paid attention to it until rain arrived all at once. NASCAR’s John Probst confirmed the starting order will revert to owner points alone when qualifying is canceled.

A season-long number is harder to wreck. Under the old weighting, one blown tire or one late-race crash on Sunday could push a title contender to the back of the field on the following Saturday morning before he turned a lap. Owner points reward the team that earned its standing over months, which is a defensible principle. The cost is that it favors the established. A hot streak buys you nothing, and a thin points history is a handicap you can’t fix in a single weekend.

Preece is not joining RFK. He is inheriting its best-known number.

The framing worth correcting: Preece has driven RFK’s No. 60 since 2025 and scored his first Cup win at Daytona in August. For 2027 he moves into the No. 6, replacing Brad Keselowski, who is a current RFK co-owner. RFK and Keselowski announced they will part ways at the end of 2026. The entire No. 60 team, crew chief Derrick Finley included, moves over with him, which makes this a promotion with the band intact rather than a new driver learning new people. Preece becomes the sixth full-time driver of the No. 6 for Jack Roush.

The detail that matters more than the sentiment is the charter count. RFK runs three charters this year, and one transfers to Legacy Motor Club in 2027. The No. 6 keeps its charter, and the future of the No. 60 entry will be announced later. So RFK is getting smaller on paper while keeping its most recognizable number on the car. That is a team consolidating around a driver and crew it already trusts, and in a sport where owner points now settle rainouts, a two-car operation has to make every one of those points count.

Dodge arrives with no points, no template and a Keselowski footnote

Dodge returns after 14 years away, the first new manufacturer on the grid since Toyota arrived in 2007. Kaulig Racing, which already anchors Ram’s truck program, will field two Chargers: AJ Allmendinger in the No. 16 and Ty Dillon in the No. 10. Dodge’s first points-paying Cup start since 2012 comes at the 69th Daytona 500 on Feb. 21. Tim Kuniskis, who leads Stellantis North America’s American Brands group, summed up the schedule with a line that works as either a mission statement or a warning: slow has never been part of Dodge DNA.

Probst said a new body normally takes about 18 months of CFD and wind tunnel work, and Dodge has no previous template to modify. Dodge has cleared the wind tunnel stage, with production panels expected in mid-November. The engine is the open question: Probst would only say it complies with the rule book, and the details are left to Kaulig and Dodge. The race car itself will be revealed on Dec. 4 at the Snowball Derby. We covered the open engine and driver questions earlier this month, and the drivers are now settled.

There is a nice irony in the timing. Keselowski won the 2012 title in a Dodge and delivered the manufacturer’s 217th and most recent Cup win that fall at Dover. Dodge announced its return on Nov. 2. RFK announced Keselowski’s exit and Preece’s promotion two days later.

What to watch

The tension to watch is early 2027. NASCAR is simplifying how it settles a washed-out Saturday just as a new manufacturer, whose body panels are still going through final checks, tries to find its footing. NASCAR has not said how owner points will be applied in the opening weeks of a season, or how a team’s new Dodge entries fit into that math, and that is a question worth asking before February. What is clear is that the rule pays out for earned, season-long results. If the Chargers want good rainout grids, they will have to earn them over a season, and Dodge says slow isn’t in its DNA. The owner-points table doesn’t care, and it’s very patient.

Should a new manufacturer get a rainout-grid break, or is starting at zero the price of entry?

Lead image: Brad Keselowski’s No. 6 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse on pit road at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before the 2026 Pennzoil 400. Photo: Nascar9919/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

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Lauren Miller

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Lauren Miller is a staff writer at Backfire Racing, covering Formula 1 and IndyCar racing with additional reporting on endurance and NASCAR.

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