returned Compete for the championship Immediately promote it to NASCAR fans as a return to civilization.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s a loss of intensity or consequence, but those involved in Monday’s announcement from NASCAR Productions believe the points race will lead to a more professional product.
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Along the way, everyone involved ultimately came to believe that this was the key to winning back lost fans.
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For example, Chase Elliott believes that the playoff format adopted from 2014 to 2025 emphasizes the wrong elements of the Cup Series. The 2020 champion said the playoffs are generating headlines and social media clips for the wrong reasons.
He noted that the focus was on dive bombing the last lap and crashing other drivers to gain the points needed to advance to the next round.
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“Like all of these things are good for you to retweet and get a lot of clicks, which is great for you guys,” Elliott told the media in attendance after the announcement. “But at the end of the day, I think for your long-term integrity of what we do and what this sport is really about, the foundation of it, the passing and the art behind the mechanics, what takes a guy from good to great is not the last lap of action that we’ve seen.”
Elliott pointed to the 2022 playoff race at Martinsville, when Ross Chastain hit the wall at full speed during the now-banned “Hail Melon” race, passing six cars and knocking Denny Hamlin out of the title race.
“We always talk about how difficult it is to overtake, how important track position is and so on,” Elliott said. “I watched Danny drive up from about four cars away from me. I was running seventh or eighth. He drove past me and didn’t knock anyone off, which was nothing crazy.”
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Elliott said Hamlin had put himself on the “right path” but Chastain undermined that, and he has a problem with that, even if it wasn’t personal.
“I just thought, ‘Man, we’re talking about the wrong thing here,’ because you don’t know how hard it is to put yourself in that position like Danny did,” Elliott said. “Instead, we’re promoting this craziness because it got us on SportsCenter that night, and I just feel like it’s all wrong.
“So my point is, it’s a great step to avoid so many confusing moments and all of us (drivers) realize there’s plenty of time to fix this.”
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For his part, the loudest advocate for a season-long championship, or at least a points-based format, is Mark Martin, who says the madness has not led to fan base growth.
So what’s the point?
“The whole idea of the playoffs was to attract more fans, but it failed,” Martin said. “It didn’t attract enough fans to make up for what we lost. A lot of classic racing fans stopped watching and Jeff Burton said we couldn’t get them back.
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“He’s probably right, but maybe we can get some of them back. I hope we can get enough of them back to at least offset those who are just looking at sparks and flames because it’s racing.
“If we can get dads to watch a race with their kids, or grandpas with their grandkids, that’s how we create new fans. We don’t necessarily have to go out and change our track product, as they say. Let’s be who we are.”
That means points-based competition – or even a version with a reset after the 26th game of the season, with the championship ultimately decided in 10 games.
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Ryan Blaney, the 2023 champion, also expressed the view that this will clean up racing in additional ways.
“I feel like it’s also going to be — I sit back and look at this new format and sometimes we all grieve over the over-aggression and stuff like that and sometimes you get into situations where it’s a win and then you move on,” Blaney said. “I think it’s going to clean up a lot of the racing aspects and get back to the pure side and become less arrogant and more of the beautiful art form that I’ve loved since I was a kid.”
Like his Hall of Famer, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a full-season points purist, but agrees with Martin that it’s a compromise that at least rivals the spirit of NASCAR.
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He said NASCAR spent too long chasing baseball fans.
“People either like motorsports or they don’t,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know if we need to try and take all these characteristics from other sports to attract them to what we do.
“I think it’s just a waste of our time trying to gain a fan that doesn’t exist, and the numbers speak for themselves. I’m not an expert on demographics or how to grow an audience, but I do know that we’re constantly trying to compare ourselves to other things and it’s not working.
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“It’s not a big difference. Motorsport is unique, right? What makes us unique is the way we settle scores and settle the season is different. We don’t need to adopt anything else in the world. We have a very good system.”
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That being said, Chasing the Championship is essentially a playoff format, but one that respects NASCAR’s tradition of points racing. Again, the final 10 weeks of the season will be more about competition than collision.
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Chase Briscoe echoed his colleagues’ words.
“You don’t see the guy on the 23rd hole passing the guy on the 22nd to the checkered flag,” Briscoe said. “Of course, every point is important, but we’re not going to do something crazy at the end of the game to finish 17th or whatever.
“Playing to win makes players smarter because now the points for victory are higher, so winning is still a huge incentive. It’s 15 more points.”
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The O’Reilly Auto Parts and Craftsman Truck Series divisions will also feature Chasing Championship racing for the first time, with all involved hoping to now develop better habits after a decade of demolition derby-style racing.
“You’re not going to knock someone out on No. 14,” Briscoe said. “You’re not going to have a situation like this anymore. Maybe when we get to Game 26, someone really needs this, maybe, but you’re not going to see people cleaning each other up or riding the fence in Martinsville multiple times a year.”
Another thing everyone in the room seemed to agree on but disagreed with NASCAR’s final conclusion was that 16 was too many competitors for a format that had previously had 10 and later 12.
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But Elliott again cites the format as a compromise.
“I thought 10 was a really good number, just because it’s really hard to get into the top 10,” Elliott said. “It’s not difficult to get into 16th place, but Mark said it perfectly.
“It’s a compromise. You’re not going to get everything you want. I do think it’s a good middle ground that we’ve reached to make everyone as happy as possible. Hopefully now we can focus on what’s most important.”
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