The regular season in the NASCAR cup championships is comprised of 26 races. Each race event is divided into three stages and the following scoring mechanism applies during the first two stages. The lead driver at the end of each stage earns 10 points, all others from second to tenth place will earn 9 points down to 1 point. The winner of stage one will also pick up one playoff point, the same goes of the winner of stage two, where the 10 to 1 points system applies again for the winner and the nine drivers behind. At the end of stage three, the winner picks up 40 points, as well as five playoff points. 35 regular points are also earned for second place all the way down to 2 points for thirty-fifth place. As there are 40 cars in a race, those from 36 to 40 will all receive 1 point. After the 26th race, the regular points are tallied and the top 10 drivers will all receive additional playoff points on the scale: 15-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. The top 15 drivers and the champion based on regular season points then advance to the playoffs.