Dale Earnhardt Jr. Thinks NASCAR Needs A 36-Race Playoffs

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has made it clear that he’s not a fan of the current NASCAR Playoffs format.

He doesn’t expect NASCAR to get rid of it, but he’d at least like to see the final championship decider expand from one to multiple races. But he’d really like to see it have a lot of races.

“In my mind, if you have a 36-race final round, you’re literally starting the playoffs at Daytona. That’s the way I look at it,” he said on the Dale Jr. Download podcast this week while advocating to a return to the full-season points system.

Earnhardt said he remembers when he was a kid watching his father race and what a “gut punch” it was during the midseason if his car broke or wrecked out of a race and he lost a lot of points he’d have to claw back.

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“That is missing now,” Earnhardt said. “Those stakes had you plugged-in.”

He disagrees with the theory that casual fans are more likely to watch when there’s a playoff format.

“I don’t think the casual fan knows when they’re tuning in,” he explained. “I don’t think the casual fan goes, ’I’m casual, I’m going to skip the regular season. I’m tuning in for the playoffs.’ They’re not casual at that point anymore.”

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He believes it might actually be detrimental, because it allows some fans to “be calculative.” so they might skip races that don’t seem important and just watch cut races, even during the playoffs.

“We need some smart people that can predict how the emotional roller coaster really affects fan engagement,” he said.

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NASCAR legend Richard Petty this week told The Athletic that he’d also like to see a return to the full-season points system that he won seven championships under.

“I’m with [Mark] Martin, that they start races in February and you run all year to November and it’s, ‘OK, who was the best that year?’ They should be champion,” he said.