Dale Earnhardt Jr. responds to calls to change NASCAR playoff format
Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts on NASCAR’s playoff format after Joey Logano won the Cup Series championship. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt responded to calls to change the format.
“Everyone has a different feeling about the way things should go,” Earnhardt said. “I’m a traditionalist. I think that the best way to determine your champion is the season-long race of running all of the races, the way we used to do it years ago. I feel like that’s the purest way to know that this person did it all right.
“But this current format gives us better moments, gives us more drama. People can argue, and oh yeah you’re going to tell me look at the attendance, look viewership, all those things. I don’t give a s***. This stuff right now, the way they have the elimination and all that, I can’t look away. It is here for a reason.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t be mad if NASCAR doesn’t change playoff format
“There’s a reason why they changed it. Is it the right way? It isn’t. Is it perfect? No, it’s not. That’s why it’s always kind of changed. That’s why the Chase or the playoffs, whatever they want to call it, we called it the Chase and then now we call it the playoff. It’s all convoluted. There’s been so many iterations of this and they keep adding people to it, they keep changing.”
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Earnhardt continued: “It will continue to change because they’re in search of that perfection, they’re in search of the perfect format. I don’t know if that exists. I won’t be mad if they change it, I won’t be mad if they leave it alone. Do I think this is great? No. Is there a better way? Probably. But I don’t pretend to know what that is. I think that to crown the champion, we need a little bit more of a sample size than one event.”
Logano won the Cup Series title despite not winning the regular season championship like Tyler Reddick and not having the most race wins like Kyle Larson who had six. To Logano’s credit, he did win four races overall with three coming in the postseason. He will look to win his fourth Cup Series title next year as the playoff format will not change in 2025.