{"id":201381,"date":"2025-10-10T00:16:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201381\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T00:16:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:16:21","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-admits-hes-rovald-out-unconvinced-by-2025-nascar-playoff-format","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201381\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits he’s ‘Roval’d out,’ unconvinced by 2025 NASCAR playoff format"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is finding it difficult to enjoy the 2025 NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series playoffs. After this past Sunday\u2019s Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte ROVAL, Earnhardt admitted he is \u201cROVAL\u2019d out.\u201d <\/p>\n

Earnhardt reiterated his belief that he favors a 36-race, season-long format to decide a champion. He added that this year\u2019s playoffs have left him \u201cexhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ROVAL\u2019d out. I am ROVAL\u2019d the hell out,\u201d Earnhardt said on Tuesday\u2019s Dale Jr. Download<\/a>. \u201c\u2026 Everybody knows that I like a season-long format. Whatever they go to, whether it\u2019s the four-race final round or if they go to the original Chase of a 10-race. I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re going to do. All that will be great. I\u2019m not gonna be \u2018ah, darn it,\u2019 if the full-season thing doesn\u2019t come back because I don\u2019t really think that\u2019s where NASCAR is going to go. So, I\u2019m ready for that mentally. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut man, I am exhausted. Something about this particular year\u2019s playoff is just not doing it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk of the playoff format and whether that will look different next year has dominated discussion off the racetrack. NASCAR president Steve O\u2019Donnell told Earnhardt in an interview<\/a> this week that nothing will be announced before the end of the season. <\/p>\n

The current format invites drama, and we saw that on the final lap at the ROVAL. Needing to pass Denny Hamlin to advance to the Round of 8 ahead of Joey Logano, Ross Chastain wiped out Hamlin on the last corner. He spun himself out in the process, driving backwards to the start\/finish line. That is how Chastain\u2019s playoffs came to an end. <\/p>\n

Earnhardt wasn\u2019t fired up seeing Chastain make a \u201czero-percent shot.\u201d He certainly didn\u2019t become more in love with the playoffs after Logano talked them up in his post-race interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people with very good points about this year, what happens at the end of the race with Chastain and Denny. I saw that, and I watched it, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Meh.\u2019 I didn\u2019t go, \u2018Oh damn, wow. Chastain going backwards.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t that blown away by it. I saw a guy making a zero-percent shot, it\u2019s like a full court f*cking heave that wasn\u2019t going in,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cAnd so, it wasn\u2019t like, \u2018If we don\u2019t have the playoffs, we don\u2019t have that.\u2019 Well, I didn\u2019t want that. I didn\u2019t need that. That didn\u2019t make me go, \u2018Damn, I\u2019m glad we got the playoffs so I can see that.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe more Joey Logano gets out of his car and tells me about the playoffs, the more I don\u2019t like the playoffs. I know he\u2019s defending it, and I know he believes what he believes, and I\u2019m good with that for him. But the more he tells me why I should like the playoffs, the less I like them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. is finding it difficult to enjoy the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. After this past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-201381","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\/201381","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=201381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}