NASCAR has scrapped its controversial and complex Playoffs that whittled down the 16 post-season contenders through a series of elimination rounds into a four-driver finale.
While aimed at creating a blockbuster, winner-takes-all scenario that appealed to TV networks, the format eventually proved too much for the industry – and its fanbase – to bear.
Into its place comes a tweaked version of the Chase concept previously used by NASCAR from 2004-2013, where all 16 post-season drivers have 10 races to accumulate as many points as possible.
It’s not quite the return to the full 36-race points accumulation season that some had wanted, but it’s the result of extensive consultation and modelling.
NASCAR legend Mark Martin labelled it the “perfect compromise”, having been a leading voice in meetings where potential changes were thrashed out.
“Mark Martin was the first guy in the room to stand up and say I want to go back to full season points,” said NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell.
“There were a lot of folks who wanted to throw Mark out of the room initially, but what Mark did was got us to a position where [we could ask], what’s the right balance?”
Martin was part of NASCAR’s media conference announcing the return to the Chase on Monday and said he was representing fans who wanted change.
“The fans were yelling at me, ‘we want full season points’, so I yelled even louder and almost got thrown out!” he recounted of the consultation meeting.
Martin, whose Hall of Fame Cup Series career stretched almost 900 races from 1981 to 2009, hopes ditching the gimmicky Playoffs will reignite passion among dormant fans.
“I would just appeal to the race fans, all the race fans, but especially the classic fans who say to me, ‘I don’t watch anymore’,” he continued.
“I say we need you. Come on back. We’re headed in the right direction. Come back and join with us, and we’ll keep making progress.”
Asked about the end game for NASCAR in redeploying the Chase, O’Donnell underlined a desire to “re-engage with our core fans, the folks who got us there are a loud voice.”
“At the end of the day, it’s growing the fan base, but it’s not just chasing new fans,” he continued.
“We need to be with the folks who brought us to the dance, make sure they believe in us, where we’re going.
“New fans will come along because they’re going to see that this is a cool sport to be around.”
If compromise was the overarching principle behind the changes, simplification ran a close second.
Among key details is that the post-season now takes the top 16 drivers on points after 26 races, with the contentious ‘win and you’re in’ qualification scrapped.
Each win will be rewarded with more points (55 instead of 40), while stage points also remain in play.
But bonuses for race and stage wins in the regular season no longer transfer into the first round of the post-season, where points are reset and a simple seeding structure is introduced.
“You need to [be able to] get on an elevator, get to the 20th floor, and be able to explain this to somebody, and we could finally do that,” said O’Donnell.
“We couldn’t do that in the past. It was really challenging.”
There’s an element too of wanting to take the week-to-week conversation away from the format and put it back on the drivers and teams.
Building a new wave of hero drivers, said O’Donnell, is still key to NASCAR’s success.
“We were talking in the past about, if you go to Bristol, Ryan Blaney wins the race, Chase Briscoe – I’m making it up here – finishes 18th, but makes the cutoff,” he said.
“The story was all about the 18th-place finisher instead of the winner. Long term that wasn’t good for us.
“We wanted to build heroes. It’s hard to win these races. It’s hard to be in the top 10.
“It’s really important for us to get back to these storylines. We think the fans will come with us.”
Current stars Ryan Blaney and the appropriately named Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliot also sung the praises of the change at the announcement.
Blaney suggested it may clean up some of the races, which under the previous format featured cynical moves to achieve key victories.
“We all get grief about over-aggressiveness and things like that, and sometimes you get put in these situations where it’s a win and move on type scenario,” he said.
“I think it’s going to clean up a lot of the racing side of it and get back to the purity side of it, to where it is a little bit more of the beautiful art form that I grew up loving.”
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