Dale Earnhardt Jr. Admits That He Was “Falling Out Of Love” With NASCAR Because Of The Playoffs

Speaking for a lot of fans.

NASCAR unveiled their new points system this week, ditching the elimination style playoff format the sport has used since 2015 and going back to a slightly modified version of the Chase format from 2004 through 2014.

Fans and drivers alike had grown tired of the previous format, a “win and you’re in” style playoff that guaranteed a driver was locked into the next round simply by winning a race. The result, of course, was that winning became the only thing that mattered: A driver could have a terrible season, win a race (whether it was a fluke or by putting all their eggs in one basket), and lock themselves into the playoffs. Consistency didn’t matter, and having a bad race (or many bad races) didn’t really hurt a team’s championship chances.

Obviously NASCAR implemented the playoff format to place an emphasis on winning, giving drivers incentive to race for the win and create exciting finishes, while also creating their version of a “game 7 moment” by having the entire season come down to one race at the end to decide the champion.

But that’s not what race fans wanted – including Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Under the new format unveiled this week, the first 26 races will make up the regular season, with the top 16 drivers at the end of the regular season making up the field for the final 10-race Chase.

The points leader at the end of the regular season will then go into Chase with 2,100 points, which will be 25 points over 2nd place, 35 points over 3rd place, and points decreasing in 5-point increments after that. The champion, at the end of the season, will be the driver with the most points at the end of the 10 race Chase. No eliminations, no “win and you’re in,” just a points reset for the final 10 races and whoever has the most points is the champion.

In order to keep a premium on winning races, the winner will now be awarded 55 points, up from 45 points under the previous format. But stakeholders believe (and hope) that the new system will place a bigger emphasis on consistency throughout the season, meaning that a driver’s finishing position each race will matter a lot more at the end of the season and each race will matter more to the final standings.

On his podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that while he wanted to go back to a full-season, 36-race points system, the Chase is the best possible compromise and should place a higher emphasis on consistency throughout the entire season:

“With the old system and this system that we’re bringing back, if you start off in a hole four weeks in a row, if you come out of the gate cold… you got a lot to consider. That wasn’t the case last year. You’d get in a hole and pop off a win, everything was fixed…

I need the lows to be f—ing low. I need the highs to be high. And we had lost that.

The highs weren’t as high. Your driver would win a race in the 5th race of the season, yeah it was great, he’s in the playoffs, but other than that… And if he had a bad race, he didn’t care. He didn’t even care… But not anymore. Bad weeks are going to affect your ability to really go win a championship in that Chase.”

And he admitted that the previous format was even affecting his feelings for the sport that he’s been around his whole life:

“When we had that full season points, you couldn’t take a week off as a fan because that race might be the race where your guy breaks a motor and gives up 180 points. That race that’s in the middle of the year, that seems like it’s not really that important, could be the one that loses you the championship. And we had lost that. I had lost that.

I was not being drawn to the sport every weekend. I was not wanting to devour it up. I was sitting there going, ‘You know what, I kinda know who’s in the playoffs so I can kinda check out.’ … I can miss this one. I don’t need to tune in today. I’m not drawn to it…

I was falling out of love with it. I really was… What we were and had become was so far removed and so gimmicky and contrived and complex, hard to f—ing follow, so I was not looking forward – I had gotten to the point to where it was like, ‘Man, I don’t want to watch this season because they’re just going to go all the way to Phoenix and four guys are going to see who goes and wins it.’

It’s too much happenstance. Too much potluck. I need to really truly watch this person build this body of work… There was a lot about it that was just falling away from me. I was falling out of love with it.”

Of course that’s probably not something Junior really wanted to admit, given all his roles in the sport. He’s not only still a broadcaster but he’s also a team owner and one of the strongest voices the sport has. But it seems to me that’s exactly why NASCAR needs to be listening way more to guys like Junior, and Mark Martin, who were integral to the process of coming up with the new format.

I know there are a lot of people who still aren’t happy that it’s not a full 36 race points season. But at the end of the day, anything that moves the sport back to what it was is a good thing in my book – and in Dale Jr.’s too.