On March 12, the latest episode of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s popular podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, was released. It was a highly anticipated episode, as Earnhardt was going to sit down and chat with newly minted NASCAR Hall of Famer Carl Edwards.
Edwards’ unexpected retirement and subsequent disappearance from the sport entirely has been a subject of speculation between fans and media alike for years. In 2023, Edwards began returning to the NASCAR world, first appearing with a bunch of other NASCAR alumni at Darlington Raceway for Throwback Weekend, even joining the FOX Sports booth for stage two.
His appearances grew more and more, not just on the NASCAR side but also at a couple of NTT IndyCar Series races in 2024.
It all culminated with a Hall of Fame induction in 2025. At the ceremony, Edwards brought what felt like his entire family to watch him become the newest member of the Hall and give a 20-minute speech that will go down as one of the better NASCAR Hall of Fame speeches in history.
A Hall of Famer opens up in a memorable way.
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 8, 2025
Hear Carl Edwards' full #NASCARHOF induction speech. pic.twitter.com/wyEOa0F42z
Now in 2025, Edwards will be back in the NASCAR spotlight fully, as it was announced he would be joining Prime Video’s NASCAR broadcasts alongside Danielle Trotta and fellow driver-analyst Corey LaJoie.
NEWS: Carl Edwards will join #NASCAR's @PrimeVideo team as a studio analyst alongside @DanielleTrotta and @CoreyLaJoie.
— Anthony Damcott (@AnthonyDamcott) March 11, 2025
Additionally, @kimmiecoon, @heymartysnider and @Tbayne6 will serve as pit reporters for Amazon's 5-race slate. https://t.co/0IUsdHKCR6
Around that same time was when it was announced that Edwards would join Earnhardt’s podcast. Fans expected it to be a good episode, and they were correct.
Edwards finally gave fans some long-awaited closure as to why he suddenly walked away from the sport entirely prior to the 2017 season.
It’s well-documented how Edwards lost the 2016 championship. A late caution for Dylan Lupton’s blown tire (which absolutely should not have been a caution) bunched the field up for a restart with 10 laps to go. Edwards, who had a comfortable lead among the Championship 4, was now forced to fend them all off one final time while simultaneously trying to take down the dominant Kyle Larson if he also wanted the race win.
Then disaster struck.
This was the last moment of Edwards’ racing career. He walked away in the offseason.
Speaking with Earnhardt on DJD, Edwards agreed that a caution for Lupton was merely to bunch the field back up.
“I know NASCAR was throwing those cautions to make it more exciting,” Edwards said. “That’s a fact, and I specifically talked to people about it. And that’s that. We’re all in this sport to entertain, and they were trying their hardest at the time [to entertain].”
As such, Edwards came to a stunning realization about his career: He wasn’t meant to be in a racecar. So he walked away. But bigger than that, he realized that he couldn’t continue racing in a format where the only thing that matters is the final restart of the season.
”I’m gonna get to Homestead at the end of 2017,” Edwards said, “I’m gonna do everything just right … and they’re gonna throw a caution with five to go? And we’re gonna put all this on a restart?”
Edwards stated that the high potential for a repeat situation like 2016, combined with the rise in head injuries in drivers such as Earnhardt himself, were the biggest factors in walking away.
If that’s not one of the biggest red flags about this playoff system then I don’t know what is.
A should-be Cup Series champion (plus an Xfinity Series champion) just called out NASCAR for manufacturing entertainment for the sake of the winner-take-all format that it created back in 2014. It doesn’t come as too much of a surprise to those who thought that was the case to begin with, so some have basically said that Edwards just said the quiet part out loud.
And to a degree, Edwards is right. When you put it like that, it really isn’t fair to a driver who should be crowned the champion to throw a caution for a driver slightly off the pace and bunch the field back up to make you fend them off again in one last ‘Game 7’ moment.
This is why so many fans despise the playoffs in its current state — the constant need to create a Game 7 moment while also attempting to reward the most consistent driver with playoff points that don’t even matter if they make the Championship 4. The argument from day one when this system was implemented was that you could win 35 of the first 36 races, lead every single lap of the season except for the final one, and lose the championship.
That’s why so many are taking Christopher Bell’s current run of three straight victories with a grain of salt.
Yes, winning three races in a row is difficult — it’s only been accomplished six times since 2007. Bell could realistically win many more consecutive races as well, as the next few tracks on the schedule are all races that he’s either won at or come very close.
But at the same time, will it even matter? Since 2007, only twice has a driver won thrice in a row and then gone on to win the championship that season — Kyle Busch in 2015 and Larson in 2021. Besides, Bell isn’t even leading the points due to his lack of stage points compared to point leader William Byron, the only other driver to win a race this season.
Not only will Bell’s impressive performance so far be wiped away after the 26th race of the season, but he has to go through three separate rounds of playoff competition before even getting a chance to hoist the Bill France Cup. And I’m not gonna sit here and say Bell will stay hot the entire season — let’s face it, racing has its ebbs and flows — but if he does and doesn’t win the title, this will be one of the biggest wasted seasons since Kevin Harvick’s 2020 season.
Compounding that issue is that Bell’s luck getting to the Championship 4, combined with his luck in the Championship 4, is abysmal. In 2022, he was barely a factor all day and finished 10th, earning third in the Cup standings. In 2023, a brake failure took him out of contention before the halfway point of the race. And in 2024, he was removed from the Championship 4 about 20-25 minutes after making it after NASCAR deemed he rode the wall on the final lap at Martinsville Speedway.
Sure, Bell has won back-to-back spring races at Phoenix Raceway, but his fall races have not been kind. And that will be frustrating if he can’t capitalize on the momentum he’s built for himself these last three races.
But it’s not his fault. If NASCAR continued to use the Latford system, or even revert to the old Chase for the Cup format between 2004-2013, you could sit here and realistically call Bell the odds-on favorite for the title after just four races because of how good he’s been.
But under this system? He could realistically end up 16th if he has a bad opening round of the playoffs.
How is that rewarding the most consistent driver?
Obviously drivers have been vocal about the playoffs, and rumor has it that a Hall of Famer (perhaps Edwards?) brought up the idea of returning to a full-season points format. But Edwards’ comments on Earnhardt’s podcast show that a large reason why he retired was due to the fact that he didn’t think he could handle putting together another incredible season only to have the title taken from him yet again due to a late caution for something like a blade of grass on the track.
Obviously, the current playoff system will be utilized in 2025 — it would be far too late and too foolish to try to change the system now. But there are reports that there could be a change to the system in 2026, and we’re now at a point in NASCAR history where NASCAR needs to listen to its Hall of Famers more than ever.
We’re starting to induct drivers and personnel into the Hall that have retired completely from the sport yet raced under this system: Edwards, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, to name a few. These drivers don’t necessarily have to watch their tongue when talking about the playoff system, and NASCAR needs to pay attention to what they say about it.
If a guy like Edwards names the playoff system as a big reason why he suddenly retired, that’s a problem. So listen to him and fix it.
In the same vein, it needs to pay attention to those on track as well. It would be a shame to see Bell come up empty-handed (if he stays hot like this throughout the season) because he has/will have had a great season with nothing to show for it.
It’s clear that change is needed with regard to how we decide a champion. Drivers past and present have made their thoughts clear.
NASCAR likely hears it all, but is it listening?
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.