On Friday (Nov. 8), NASCAR Executive VP & Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell addressed reporters, including those of Frontstretch, in his annual championship weekend press conference and spoke on the state of the sport at Phoenix Raceway. O’Donnell was quick to defend the hot topic: NASCAR’s current stance on the playoffs when asked if any changes were to be made after the recent fallout surrounding events at Martinsville Speedway.
“The format is one thing, but we’re not going to go away from playoffs,” O’Donnell said during the press conference. “We read fans. We will as we always do. We’ll absolutely look at what form the playoffs take in the offseason. … We are always looking if there are opportunities for us to tweak something, so be it.”
O’Donnell was taking the heat after last week’s controversial climax to the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 8. Title contender Christopher Bell was penalized and eliminated from the Championship 4, putting William Byron in and sending the stock car racing world into a frenzy of conversation that has lasted into this weekend’s season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
It was a conversation that only intensified two days later when the teams of Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon were penalized for their alleged involvement of late-race manipulation.
Regardless of opinion, all of these consequences stemmed from what has become a controversial and hotly debated subject in the stock car world: the existence of the postseason itself.
But the future of the playoffs isn’t just on the minds of the fan base. When driver availability opened Saturday morning at Phoenix Raceway, drivers spoke to reporters on their opinions of what possible evolutions NASCAR’s postseason format could take in the future, if any at all.
Among those who called for change, or perhaps the disposal of the playoffs altogether, on social media after the Martinsville race was elder NASCAR statesman Brad Keselowski.
He went into further detail in Phoenix.
“I think you have to go back and ask yourself just one key question of what are we trying to achieve?” Keselowski told reporters. “And then everything should just connect to that. To me, what we’re trying to achieve is we all want this sport to be a major sport, and the easiest measurement of that is our fans’ sentiment and fans vote through their butts and their eyeballs. Do they sit in the stands, and do they watch on TV or whatever medium they might watch on? That should be the measurement as to whether the playoffs or whatever format is successful.
“I mean, the ratings have been up in the playoffs, so I guess the argument could be made nothing needs to change in one sense, but if we’re comparing against 2012, then the ratings clearly aren’t up.”
Perhaps one of the most vocal drivers calling for change, unsurprisingly, was fellow NASCAR veteran and 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin, who was eliminated from the playoffs himself last weekend.
“I think that there’s tons of discussion on ways that could improve it,” Hamlin said. “I agree the playoffs will never go away, which is quite alright, but certainly the small sample size is really tough, because obviously you’ve seen the data and could argue the first four out, the first four in.
“I just believe we don’t live in a one-on-one sport. We don’t get a seven-game series or anything like that. We live in a world where, in our sport only, when our competition makes a mistake, it can cost us. Usually, in any other sport, competition makes a mistake, you capitalize, and you score, or it benefits you. Our sport is not like that, so you must create a bigger sample size to get the right answer.”
Other drivers may have come with a little less detail, but most seemed ready to welcome a change to the format even though they weren’t sure how a new format would look.
“I think just our cars are so close now that I think they should look at doing something a little bit different,” Kyle Larson, the 2021 Cup champion, explained. “I don’t think it needs to be drastically different. I think small tweaks could help.
“I don’t know what that is, though. So I’m sure they’re going to look at it. I’m sure they’re going to take in advice from everybody within the sport and probably the fans as well. So I don’t know if that means a change would come next year or when.”
Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe added that, whatever NASCAR does, it’s hard to create perfection.
“I don’t think there is a perfect format, right?” Briscoe, who was eliminated after the Round of 12 this year, said. “Like at some point, somebody is always going to get the bad end of it, and those Game 7 moments are what makes it exciting. I think the emphasis on winning is not bad, but there probably does need to be something.
“I don’t know. It’s tough because you can be the best team in any sport, right? And have a bad playoff, and in your first round, you’re out. I don’t know what that perfect format would be, because I don’t think there is a perfect one.”
While many drivers remained ambiguous on the idea of how to tweak it, Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell appeared to be among the few that made his format changes specific.
“I feel like it’s produced really good racing,” McDowell said. “But there’s so much on the line, and when every point matters like that, I think maybe those guys should just be racing each other and not racing all of us for points.
“So what I mean by that is like if you’re running 10th and Bell’s running 20th, but he’s the next playoff car, that’s only one point instead of the nine points being in between there. You know what I mean?”
If NASCAR officials do decide to make a tweak to the playoffs, as O’Donnell suggested in his press conference, it would be the first change to the format since the introduction of stage racing in 2017.
And tweak they very well could, for while some drivers say there could be an argument for the modern-day format, none of them stated they wished for it to remain the way it is.
Follow Dalton Hopkins on X at @PitLaneCPT
About the author
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loudcolumn, co-host of the Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT
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I think Nascar needs to figure out yet another layer of points to keep track of, just to make the point totals even more obscure…maybe add in points for how many cars the top 10 pass during a race.
How about POINTS for qualifying? POINTS for most green flag passes? POINTS for bringing out the most cautions? Nothing like continuing to simplify the POINTS system so it is easier to understand than the Latford system.
I sense just a tiny bit of sarcasm with this post ;-)
ha ha absolutely
Right as if NASCAR will listen to the drivers.