{"id":117210,"date":"2025-09-03T17:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/117210\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T17:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:12:08","slug":"richard-petty-points-out-nascars-popularity-problem-rips-playoff-format","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/117210\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Petty points out NASCAR’s popularity problem, rips playoff format"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NASCAR<\/a> that Richard Petty dominated in his day was far different than the one we see today. Like anything, the sport has evolved \u2014 some would argue for the worse, some for the better. <\/p>\n

What can\u2019t be argued is that NASCAR isn\u2019t as popular in the mainstream today, as it was before. Petty, speaking with Jeff Gluck of The Athletic<\/a>, cited several factors. One, in his belief, is that there\u2019s so much competition for eyeballs in today\u2019s sports landscape. The \u201cnew generation\u201d isn\u2019t as \u201cinterested in cars,\u201d Petty said, adding it\u2019s difficult to ask fans to show up to the racetrack and invest three to four hours of their time. <\/p>\n

The other problem? The lack of superstars, Petty said. Petty was one himself. Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Darrell Waltrip were that in the 1980s. The 1990s and 2000s, meanwhile, gave us Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson among others. Petty doesn\u2019t see a \u201cleader\u201d in today\u2019s field.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, there\u2019s too big of a crowd. We\u2019ve got no leaders,\u201d Petty said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had, what, 15 different winners this year? That does not create a following. No matter what happens, you need a fox out front. We don\u2019t have any leader \u2014 whether he\u2019s good, bad or indifferent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Darrell was winning a bunch of races, they\u2019d call him \u2018Jaws\u2019 and people would come to see him either win or get beat. Same with Earnhardt: You wanted to see him win a race, or you wanted to see somebody beat him. Right now, we don\u2019t have that. So, I think it takes a little prestige away from what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Petty: NASCAR trying to \u2018modernize,\u2019 keep up with other sports and it\u2019s not working<\/p>\n

Gluck\u2019s conversation with \u201cThe King\u201d later shifted to the ongoing playoff and championship format debate. There are those who love the 10-race, elimination style format \u2014 adopted in 2014 \u2014 in which the championship is decided by a one-race finale. Petty is not one of them. <\/p>\n

Mark Martin has been outspoken against the system, advocating for a return of the 36-race, full-season points format. Petty agrees with Martin.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, I\u2019m still from the old school. I\u2019m with Martin, that they start races in February and you run all year to November and it\u2019s, \u2018OK, who was the best that year?\u2019 They should be champion,\u201d Richard Petty said. \u201cWhen they give points for leading different [stages] in the race and they give points for all this other stuff, that\u2019s a bunch of crap, OK? If you\u2019re sitting there and watching a football game and the team has been behind the whole game and they kick a field goal and they win the game, the guys who lost got a zero. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat should be the same way in NASCAR racing. I don\u2019t care if you lead 499 laps of a 500-lap race \u2014 if you get beat, then you\u2019re not the winner, and you shouldn\u2019t have any [extra] points. They\u2019re trying to modernize stuff, and they\u2019re trying to keep up with other sports. They\u2019re trying to come up with new ideas. And so far, I haven\u2019t seen any of them really working.\u201d<\/p>\n

The playoff format could, in fact, change in the near future. NASCAR put together a playoff committee consisting of former drivers, media partners, team owners, manufacturers, track representatives and independent media to determine if the playoff should change in 2026, such as potentially doing away with the one-race finale.\u00a0There has been no word yet from NASCAR if there will be any changes for next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASCAR that Richard Petty dominated in his day was far different than the one we see today.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-117210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}