page_title: List of NASCAR Cup Series champions
section_title: By drivers
hierarchical_section_title: List of NASCAR Cup Series champions / By drivers
caption_attribution_description: Dale Earnhardt, Chevrolet Lumina, Michigan International Speedway – 14 June 1994 Film Scan Canon AE-1Old School NASCAR- Dale Earnhardt 1994
context_page_description: The NASCAR Cup Series Drivers' Championship is awarded by the chairman of NASCAR to the most successful NASCAR Cup Series racing car driver over a season, as determined by a points system based on race results. The Drivers' Championship was first awarded in 1949 to Red Byron. The first driver to win multiple Championships was Herb Thomas in 1951 and 1953. The current Drivers' Champion is Kyle Busch, who won his second NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2019.
  The NASCAR points system has undergone several incarnations since its initial implementation. Originally, races awarded points by a complicated system based upon final positioning and weighted by prize money purses, such that higher-paying events gave more points. Soon after the advent of the modern era in 1972, the championship was decided by a more basic cumulative point total based solely upon a driver's finishing position in each race. In order to reduce the possibility of a driver clinching before the final event, NASCAR implemented the "Chase for the Cup" in 2004 which, with minor modification from 2004 to 2013 and more radical changes in 2014, stands as the current format.
context_section_description: As of completion of the seventy-first season (2019), 33 different drivers have won a NASCAR Cup Series Drivers' Championship – with 16 of these drivers winning more than once.
caption: Dale Earnhardt (1994 car shown) was the second driver to reach seven Drivers' Championships.
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