It took a photo from twenty years ago to sum up the feelings in NASCAR recently. One image, circulating virally on Reddit, shows Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – both younger, wearing their iconic Viagra and Budweiser firesuits and sharing a laugh on pit road. The caption reads simply: “We absolutely would not be here without ’em.”
After the landmark January 12 announcement that the playoff format had been abolished, the dust has settled, and the verdict is unanimous: NASCAR is back and The Chase is being praised by fans.
For over a decade, the championship struggled under the weight of the playoffs – a format designed for television drama that was often seen to sacrifice good driving for a more simple rule: Champions could be decided by a single race win while season-long dominance could potentially not. It was safe to say that drivers hated it, and fans weren’t any more positive, either.
When NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell finally agreed to review the points system last summer, he brought in two beloved titans of the sport to help him: Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. These three had a serious task on their hands in pleasing the broadcasters while also pleasing fans and drivers.
“I was the only one…. I was screaming about it,” Martin said. And I wasn’t doing it for me. I was screaming about it because they asked me to be on it and because everywhere I go, and every fan I talk to, hates playoffs.”
He continued: “I’m a guy who has a bigger voice than those fans, and so I decided I owe my entire career to the race fans that supported me so I stood up for the fans and through the meetings – I can’t believe it – but eventually a full season was on the table.”
At the same time, Earnhardt Jr., publicly admitted to “falling out of love” with the sport: “I’m careful to admit this because … man, I’m a broadcaster,” he said. “I got all kinds of roles and responsibilities. I don’t know if that hurts my position in the sport to say s***, I was falling out of love with it. I really was.”
The result is The Chase. While not a complete return to the 1990s, the new system eliminates the Knockout Rounds. There is no Round of 16 or Final Four. Instead, the top 16 drivers reset for the final 10 races, but with a massive, tiered points advantage based on regular-season performance – a 100-point gap that protects the best drivers from bad luck.
“It guarantees that a driver who has delivered all season long has the ability to be named champion,” O’Donnell conceded, a direct echo of the arguments Martin and Earnhardt have made for years.
“The integrity of our sport is important to me,” Martin told Kenny Wallace last year. “I feel like what I accomplished in my career, is being diminished by gimmicks.”
