The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series director Rick Schwallie announced that the series will return to a season long points format for the upcoming 2026 after experimenting with the playoff formats the last couple of years.

During the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series banquet, Schwallie said, “For the 2026 season we are going to return to a traditional points format for next year and go away from the chase format.”

“We tried something,” he continued. “We wanted to elevate our program. We more than doubled our points fund in that time in those three years. We had clients like Big River Steel and ARP that helped us do that and really we wouldn’t be here over $1.2 million today if it wasn’t for that. So I don’t look bad and think of that as any sort of failure by any stretch of the imagination. I really think it was a success that it took us to new places and a place that’s more lucrative for our race teams,”

“But I also think that we’re at a place that we’ve tried different formats, different tweaks to that format. Here we are three years later that we’re just going to return to a traditional format for next year and the points fund will remain the same,” he declared.

While the overall points format will return to a traditional season long championship, Schwallie went on to share that the series will be rolling out a couple of bonus programs especially for some of the marquee races at the end of the season at Eldora, the newly reformatted West Virginia Motor Speedway, Brownstown Speedway, and Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway.

He explained, “We do have a lot of events at the end of the year. Those final five events or so of our schedule that are very lucrative and big paying events and those racetracks have counted on the eyeballs of our audience watching us at that time to be successful. With that we’re going to do a few bonus programs for next year that are very lucrative to place a big spotlight on our sport. I’m excited to announce those and we’ll do so in the next two weeks before Christmas.”

NEXT: Ricky Thornton Jr. Shares His Plans For 2026 And Reveals The National Tour He’ll Race With