This weekend's entry list for the Sprint Cup race Atlanta Motor Speedway has 39 entries, one shy of a full field. It's a fact rarely seen in stockcar racing's highest level of competition.
This season, NASCAR trimmed to 40 cars the fields for two of its three major national racing series, down from 43. For Sprint Cup, the change was introduced in a landmark charter system.
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That system also affected the amount of prize money available.
The race will include all 36 charter teams and three without charters.
This week's Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 is scheduled for Sunday, the second race in the 2016 Sprint Cup season. TV coverage of the race begins at 1 p.m. ET on Fox.
MORE: Drivers react to reduced downforce, looser handling at Atlanta
This place gets pretty busy during practice. #FoHQT500 #ClassicSouthern pic.twitter.com/lNvnVyPWPr
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 26, 2016
This is the first time since the Kentucky Speedway race in 2014 that NASCAR has fewer entries than a full field. For that race the field was also one shy of the maximum, with 42 of the then-allowed 43 entries. Before that, according to former Sporting News reporter Bob Pockrass, the last short fields in the Cup series were in 2001.
In the new system, 36 teams were given charters and guaranteed to make the field for every Sprint Cup race this season. It's a level of protection not needed this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The open cars in the field are driven by Ryan Blaney, for Wood Brothers Racing; Cole Whitt, for Premium Motorsports; and Josh Wise, for The Motorsports Group. In contrast, there were 44 cars entered for the Daytona 500.
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The charter system did more than just lock in those 36 cars to the field. It also established a team owner council and offered teams new revenue opportunities, among other things. That's not to say the charter system is responsible for having 39 entries this weekend.
This race is unique in another way — it is the first with low-downforce cars and is the first test on the tracks that make up the majority of the NASCAR schedule.
New rules include a 3.5-inch spoiler, a 0.25-inch front leading splitter edge and a 33-inch wide radiator pan. This will reduce the downforce, placing handling on the cars more into the hands of the drivers.
The charter scheme also lowered the amount of money available each race to so-called open teams. The 36 charter teams are from 19 racing operations. The plan "increased business certainty and the ability to work more closely with NASCAR to produce best-in-class racing," according to series chairman Brian France.
But open teams receive 35 percent of what charter teams get for each race, Pockrass reports. NASCAR executive Brian Dewar told to NBC Sport that open teams get a guaranteed amount, or "fixed purse," that is about 30 percent of the total charter teams receive.
Without a full 40-car field, money available to the absent open team will go into a fund that will be divided among the three open teams that finish highest in owner points.
In September 1993, a Cup race at Martinsville went off with 34 cars on the track. The most recent race with fewer than 40? September 1996 at North Wilkesboro, with a field of 37. That, by the way, was the last Cup race run at North Wilkesboro Speedway, a five-eighths-mile oval.
NASCAR heads west for three races in March — March 6 at Las Vegas, March 13 at Phoenix and March 20 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.