The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) makes and enforces numerous rules and regulations that transcend all racing series.
NASCAR issues a different rule book for each racing series; however, rule books are published exclusively for NASCAR members and are not made available to the public. Still, many of the rules, such as the scoring system, have been widely publicized both by NASCAR and the media.
Car livery
Each car is required to display its number on each door of the car and on its roof. The front of the car and bottom of the rear bumper are required to match the decal specifications of the car manufacturer. Each car was until recently required to display a series of around 30 NASCAR sponsor decals just to the left of each door and on the front fenders, but recent developments have reduced the amount of decals significantly to only a handful. These contingency decals represent series sponsors and bonus money teams are eligible to earn during the race, but may be omitted in the event in which they conflict with the team's sponsors or moral beliefs. The series sponsor's logo is displayed on top of the windshield, called the windshield header or windshield banner.
Beginning in 2013, the livery layout for the NASCAR Cup Series was altered, coinciding with the change to the Generation 6 model car. In lieu of the series sponsor like in lower series, the windshield prominently features the last name of the driver (as well as first name or first initial in the case of siblings and family members, as is the case for both Busch brothers, or suffixes for drivers such as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr.) placed in the center of the windshield header. Logos of the manufacturer are placed on each corner of the upper windshield. Number and sponsor logos were barred from being placed on the headlights and taillights, as not to obstruct each car model's unique characteristics. A new location for a single sponsor logo, however, was added to the rear of the roof adjacent to the number. In 2014, a new layout was created for participants in the NASCAR Chase for the Championship, requiring the cars to feature yellow roof numbers, front splitters and front fascias. The background of the windshield header would also be colored yellow, with the driver's name displayed in black lettering. A new Chase for the Championship logo would replace the normal NASCAR Cup Series logo in the contingency group. A decal would also be placed next to the driver's name above the door to signify each win a driver earned that season. For 2015, the liveries of the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series would feature the driver's last name on the upper rear window. During the Monster Energy Cup Series era from 2017 to 2019, the Monster Energy logo was on the front windshield with the driver name moving to the rear windshield; this was replaced with the Cup Series logo for 2020 after Monster Energy's sponsorship ended, before NASCAR reinstated the driver name the following season (the Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series continued carrying the series title sponsor on the windshield, a practice that began with the Nationwide Series era in 2008 and the birth of the Truck series respectively; drivers running points for Xfinity Series also carry their names on the cars' front windshields in that series). In 2022, with the introduction of the Next Gen model car for the Cup Series, the door number was moved forward on all cars, taking the space formerly occupied by the contingency decals, and the driver name on the front windshield was shifted to the right (the same position as on Xfinity driver windshields for points-eligible drivers) to make room for a cooling duct on the center of the car's windshield, following heat complaints from drivers.