What an offseason it was.
The playoffs, win-and-in, one win for a championship and little concern for consistency are long gone. The Chase format is back and consistency throughout the season and the final 10 races will determine a champion.
It isn’t what many wanted but it is heading in the right direction. The lawsuit that so many thought would never get to court did and the 800-pound gorilla was taken down by the “little teams” that could. The easiest scapegoat among the sports leadership was axed in a symbolic show of accountability that was extremely hollow but at least somewhat meaningful.
Now, the other leader that many thought would be in the unemployment line is taking the microphone to beat the drum that the sport is listening and getting back to work to win the fans back. We’ll see what that means.
Win-and-in was a sin. That was the message that NASCAR heard loud and clear from the fans. It was resounding from the fans that the means of making the playoffs was unsatisfactory and they wanted to see the drivers who were consistently near the front every week of the “regular” season rewarded with a chance to win the title.
Under the new format, the top 16 drivers in the point standings when the checkered flag flies at Daytona International Speedway in August will be the ones who run for the title. The points will reset for the final 10 races and the one who is best at the end of the Chase will hoist the big trophy. It isn’t a full season championship but it is absolutely going to reward the best performers week-in and week-out that showcase their talent at the front of the field.
The real story of the season is what is the future of the sport really going to look like. The lawsuit in the off-season was settled but everyone knows that 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports came out the victors. The result really helped the entire sport by exposing what was going on behind the scenes and how poorly the leadership of the sport felt about the competitors, team owners and fans.
Getting a look behind the curtain was honestly shocking to many of the people who have loved the sport for decades. The pettiness was simply despicable from a sport that is supposed to be a leader and the pinnacle of auto racing in the United States. Hopefully, being exposed for their horrible attitudes toward everyone outside of the glass tower in Daytona is going to make them realize what needs to happen going forward.
Steve O’Donnell, a man that many people thought would be out of a job after the lawsuit settlement, hit the soapbox this week and pounded the stump to vow that NASCAR is going to work hard to get back to the basics and back to what made them as popular as the NFL in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They asked the fans a couple of years ago what they wanted to see and they said more short tracks and road courses. That resulted in the short track race count on the schedule of point races dropping to 10 and the road course total topping out at five before dropping to four this season.
The fans wanted to see beating, banging and trading paint. It was evident last week when the Cook Out Clash turned into chaos, but the show was truly entertaining and looked like old school racing that we just don’t see anymore. Hopefully, the schedule will continue to evolve into more historic racing than modern technology. A little more on that later.
The teams seem to feel like they have begun to open lines of communication a little more with the leadership of the sport, but they have a long way to go to get back to the days when the drivers and the leadership were friends. They saw each other outside of the race track more than they saw each other inside the walls. The teams need to get back to the love of the sport and also to innovating. This sport was built on the amazing minds that filled the garage pushing the envelope and figuring out how to make cars go fast.
The sport need to get away from bolt together kit cars that are 99% identical. The rules need to open up and let people develop and spend money on the places that they want to focus on, not where they are told to spend it. Make the cars harder to drive and let the skills of the drivers come to the forefront and let the winner be the bold who can do things that no one else can. Ken Squier always liked to wax that the sport of NASCAR is filled with common men doing uncommon things. That mindset needs to get back into everyone’s heads in the garage area of NASCAR.
NASCAR has kicked off a campaign called “Hell Yeah” for the 2026 season. It is an idea that they are going to get back to basics. They won’t say it out loud because they know every fan would see right through the hypocrisy of it, but they have finally realized that they have lost their core fan base and they need to bring rednecks back to the NASCAR that they used to fuel to ridiculous heights of popularity. The chase for casual fans and the international audience has done nothing but dwindle the passion of a rabid fan base. They need to truly get back to the roots that still anchor the sport, although it is not the strength that they had all of those years ago.
That brings it back to the schedule of the future. NASCAR racing is stock car racing. Stock cars race in circles. They jumped on a road course or two just for the novelty of it but that is not where these cars belong. They also need to be close together and beating on each other without wrecking each other with mild contact. That can only really be accomplished on short tracks. The sport was built on the little bullrings around the Southeast, often at fairgrounds with dirt tracks. The sport truly needs to get back to that. To do that the schedule needs a dramatic revamping.
That starts with tracks not having two races on the schedule. Every track gets one race with two exceptions. The Clash goes back to Daytona and the All-Star race goes back to Charlotte Motor Speedway. They started at those tracks, they built them into what they were and that is where they need to be. That leaves 10 races open for new venues on the schedule. All of those tracks need to be a mile or less in length. At least two, if not three, need to be dirt tracks. Not temporary dirt tracks, but actually dirt tracks that race regularly. Knoxville Raceway, Lucas Oil Speedway, Volusia Speedway Park, Eldora Speedway, the Springfield Mile or DuQuoin State Fairgrounds, Golden Isles Speedway, Brownstown Speedway and Florence Speedway are a few of them that would be able to host the Cup Series.
Then we look at short tracks. There are historic tracks across this country. Stafford Motor Speedway, Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, Oxford Plains Speedway, South Boston Speedway, Hickory Motor Speedway, Five Flags Speedway, New Smyrna Speedway, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Berlin Raceway, La Crosse Speedway, Meridian Speedway, Evergreen Speedway, Kevin Harvick’s Kern Racewa or even Alaska Raceway Park are just some of the jewels that would be amazing for a Cup race.
If you want to truly show the fans you care, get back to the history of the sport. Get the drivers out in the public more often. The drivers used to do availability with fans, not corporate suits in climate controlled suites. Drivers used to sit down and talk with media and make appearances at local venues leading up to races. The drivers have lost the connection to the fans that made them the idols that fans truly cared about every race, every weekend.
The sport isn’t dead but it is a long way from thriving. The folks in Daytona still hold the reins but the need to let the horse run more.
What is it that Mike Neff doesn’t do? Mike announces several shows each year for the Good Guys Rod and Custom Association. He also pops up everywhere from PRN Pit Reporters and the Press Box with Alan Smothers to SIRIUS XM Radio. He has announced at tracks all over the Southeast, starting at Millbridge Speedway. He's also announced at East Lincoln Speedway, Concord Speedway, Tri-County Speedway, Caraway Speedway, and Charlotte Motor Speedway.
It’s very funny to hear people saying NASCAR heard “win and you’re in” is a sin loud and clear. They didnt listen to the fans for yrs and it took a lawsuit and the disclosure of the level of disrespect toward long time owners and fans to do it
Better than stupid crapshoot. Doesn’t change the fact that a lot of champions should not have been.
We’ll see how this goes. Getting away from the kit car would be good.
And please don’t tell me Phelps has the answer
Like has been written before, if the NA$CAR brain trust had given more POINTS to the winner with the Latford system, this attempt to make the POINTS system easier to understand wouldn’t have been necessary! Didn’t the NA$CAR brain increase the POINTS for the winner in the new iteration of the POINTS system? Who’da thunk it?
I’m not so sure “win and you’re in” was such a sin. It guaranteed the drivers racing for the championship had at least one win under their belt. However, I do see the down side in that a driver 20+ in points with no chance suddenly becomes a playoff driver. Easiest way to fix that is require them to be top 20 or 22 in points for their wins to count towards the Chase. I remember Jaime McMurray having an awesome season, winning several key races, but too many DNFs dropped him out of the top ten. NASCAR created the “wild cards” the next season and expanded the Chase from 10 drivers to 12. I’ve said before that 16 drivers is too many, 12 is much better and closer to the “best of the best.”
And I totally agree the stage cautions stink, and those caution laps should not count if they’re going to keep them. It just throws fuel and tire strategy out the window and interrupts the flow of the race. We know they’re just “TV timeouts.”
Probably doesn’t get said often enough. While we strongly disagree about any sort of chase or playoff improving the product, I respect your willingness to stand your ground as part of the Frontstretch minority on this topic, and give reasoned opinions outlining your position, without lapsing into insulting others.
Thanks daytight! I enjoy reading your comments too, we mostly agree. :)
Mostly agree with Mike here, but disagree with a few points.
For this fan, the largest answer is a simple one. Remove stage cautions. We race fans may be stupid, be we are not so stupid as to watch a four hour race, knowing only the final 1/3 really matters. The first 2/3 of every race is basically just qualifying for the final stage, and that’s assuming a good pit stop before stage 3. Keep the stage points, just eliminate the cautions.
Adding 2-3 dirt tracks doesn’t make sense to me. While NASCAR cut its teeth on dirt, these tracks had no presence during NASCAR’s ascendance to national relevance in the 80’s and 90’s. To me, dirt tracks are not integral to NASCAR any more than leather helmets are to football.
While I agree most tracks do not need two dates, do not take dates away from Martinsville or Bristol. Run Martinsville when it’s not stupid cold in Virginia, and run it during the day. Run one late Spring, and the other early Fall. Martinsville is at its best when the track is greasy, so the cars don’t run on rails. Fix the Bristol track’s banking, returning it to the low groove dominant beast it once was. I’m familiar with most of the other short tracks mentioned, and I’d much rather see Martinsville and Bristol returned to their old glory than adding one of the other bull rings noted.
Absolutely return the Clash to Daytona, but return it to what it once was…a race for teams which logged a pole position the prior year. It adds meaning to qualifying. If you want to guarantee spots for the top five or ten in points the prior year, fine, but part of what made the clash fun was the unusually small fields back in the day.
In addition, allow Daytona to keep two dates for points races, but return the second date to the week of Independence Day, and return the name to “Firecracker 400”. This was a tradition, not quite to the level of the 500, but a better known NASCAR tradition than most. Nobody cares about Chicago’s race, because the track is just yet another boring cookie-cutter. Obviously they’ll want race sponsor dollars, so “The Firecracker 400 presented by Pennzoil” or even “The Pepsi Firecracker 400” allow for both.
Speaking of fan intelligence… we’re also not stupid enough to not see through stage cautions just being air time for more commercials. Here’s the kicker: NASCAR fans (historically) were very loyal to the sponsors who made NASCAR possible. Again, fans are not stupid, we know who pays the bills. That said, we don’t need to see the same NAPA commercial air 10 times during a race. We know NAPA has a long history in NASCAR and we appreciate them being here throughout the years (as well as other long-time sponsors). We’ll spend our money with ya’ll. We don’t need to see your commercials on repeat every 5 minutes.
I still think O’Donnell needs to go too.
Well said. Especially about Martinsville. When they ran it as a day race in early spring it was the first race we came to from colder Pennsylvania It was a wonderful thing to enjoy the warm sunshine and watch a great race at a short track. The fall race before they caved into the 3 pm start time was great too. Enjoy sun for most of the day start race at 1 pm and most of the time the race finished so I could catch a flight home that night and not have to stay over. I have nothing against night racing but running Martinsville in the day made for great race