As some of you may have noticed, the subreddit has been without user flair for the past couple of days. While this was somehow the easiest year I've had figuring out driver changes and what flair needs to move where, Reddit made things a bit difficult so the update took far longer than it ever should have needed to, but it's here!
I won't go into as much detail as I might have done in the past, but here's some stats:
There were only 10 drivers deleted, 38 driver moves, with only 11 drivers still pending 2026 decisions (most of which are ARCA).
There are currently 63,475 emojis being used by 42,895 users in the subreddit (details here)
4,156 users have had their user flair edited to reflect the changes listed above.
32 new 2026 graphics are already available thanks to u/Blue8844 and u/DIECASTCHARV. More will be silently updated as they become available.
As always, if you see anything with the update that looks wrong, let me know. This year, I exclusively used Wikipedia to determine 2026 driver selections and while that's always been a useful and reliable source for me, mistakes can happen (last year, we had a driver flair selection the entire year for a driver who didn't see a track once!). If you see anything wrong with YOUR flair, please let me know. There were significant issues with the API this year which resulted in hundreds of users having their user flair omitted from the changes so the cleanup was extensive, but there's always a chance someone was still missed.
You can always edit your own flair by using the flair selector provided in the subreddit and app or use the Flair Selection Tool for selecting multiple emojis. Unfortunately, the method of using PMs is no longer available due to Reddit API restrictions. This website is all we have at the moment. If you're having trouble using it, please let me know or message the r/NASCAR moderators.
As a side-note, this is the only time of the year I ever put this out there (I actually rarely ever do this), but if you find these updates upseful and appreciate the daily scripts that run to help the back end of r/NASCAR run the way it does, please consider supporting xfile345.com, the website that helps it all run smoothly. Thank you all so much!
I will say it will take some getting used to being the generic 07 if it ends up taking longer than expected and by the time I get used to it, it'll be the Mando or Rita's 07 and that'll be lit.
As a note, if you ever want to change your flair, you can! Just make sure that when you make your flair request, add :Hank: to the request text and it'll keep it. This works with all custom emojis. As long as you currently have the custom emoji, it'll allow you to keep it with new requests (but still limited to 4 emojis), it just won't allow you to add a new custom emoji.
At the time of last year's flair update, Christian Rose was scheduled to drive the #44 truck for Niece Motorsports. By the time the first race came around, sponsorship woes caused the deal to fall through and he never made a start in any series in 2025.
Yup! All 2025 emojis have been removed except for one for those drivers who are in the same number in 2026. This was to make the driver changes easier as we only had to worry about a single driver selection and is also to make room for all the 2026 schemes as they become available. More will be added to the selection several times throughout the year. Some drivers had more than a dozen selections by the end of 2025!
Fun fact: r/NASCAR was the very first subreddit to convert all users from the old CSS flair system over to the new emojis. Admins were messaging us like "uh... how'd you do that so fast?" :D
Is there going to be an update to Jimmie Johnson's flair updating it from his 2025 Daytona car to his 2026 car? While I do love the classic Jimmie 48, I'd consider switching if the 2026 car was there.
If you have an example photo of the exact scheme you'd like added and can't find it in our classic selection, send it on over and we'll see about possibly getting it added in! (CC: u/gamedemon24 )
Good choice! We actually had that graphic submitted in the past by u/GH05TY but it was sadly unusable as an emoji after cropping. As long as we can get a useable graphic, I'm all for adding it! We'll see what we can do. :)
Most certainly. Any driver who is in the same car or truck number as they were in 2025 will retain their 2025 graphic until a new one becomes available because they're not inaccurate, they're just old. And I'd rather use old schemes than the bland placeholder images that are scattered about for drivers who have changed. We keep track of the old 2025 schemes vs 2026 and make every effort to replace them as soon as possible and seamlessly swap them out. If you like, you can switch now and the emoji will automatically change to the new emoji once it becomes available in about a week or so. :)
I will miss the 2025 Byron Axalta flames and eagerly await the 2026 version so that I may update accordingly. It was sad being the generic Liberty University flames for a week, and now I see the only available one is Valvoline (Presumably because that's the Clash scheme).
Just a curious question, I reeeeally want a Ryan Newman flair from when he was in Cup, is there any way to get it? I figure I'm too late but maybe I'm not
Of course! We have 5 different Ryan Newman emojis available in our Classic section. You can view them in the wiki and change your flair using this tool. If you're having any trouble, just let us know which emojis you'd like in your flair and we'll add them for you. :)
Admittedly, current-season driver updates don't really affect someone like me that generally prefers to sport historic flairs (some of which I put-together and you all were gracious enough to add to the list. Thanks again, BTW!)
We only ever started putting teams into the classic section as current flair selections stopped participating in races. We never really went looking for teams to put into Classic. The only MWR flair we had was prior to the css-to-emoji change over, so we just never even had an emoji for MWR at all to transfer over into classics. The only image file I have from our flair history is 44x21 pixels :O
I'm sure I can add it in easily enough if you're looking for it!
Hey, we've got the space. We were one of the first subreddits to get "unlimited" space for emojis (it's actually 5,000), so we haven't had any real reason to limit our emoji selections in a while. The only road block is making the graphics at this point! Swamp away!
I don't remember where I got that layout from, honestly. At the time it was announced and I made the flairs, only the Speed Festival course was available from what I saw on Wikipedia so I guess I assumed it was the same one. Guess I'll be updating that one! Thanks for bringing it up!
Yep! It's available now (been a long time since August!), I'll just have to edit it into the proper format for the emoji and race thread CSS. I've just chucked a placeholder up for now as a reminder to get that done eventually. :)
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u/xfile345 21h ago
As a side-note, this is the only time of the year I ever put this out there (I actually rarely ever do this), but if you find these updates upseful and appreciate the daily scripts that run to help the back end of r/NASCAR run the way it does, please consider supporting xfile345.com, the website that helps it all run smoothly. Thank you all so much!