{"id":275615,"date":"2025-11-11T04:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T04:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/275615\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T04:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T04:25:08","slug":"insider-gives-hot-take-on-how-to-fix-nascar-cup-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/275615\/","title":{"rendered":"Insider gives hot take on how to ‘fix’ NASCAR Cup Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the NASCAR offseason in full swing, it\u2019s time to do some offseason exercises. For instance, fixing the NASCAR Cup Series<\/a>. If the sport could get one massive overhaul overnight, what would you include in the updates? What is getting taken out of the current system? <\/p>\n

Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic started the offseason with a new episode of The Teardown<\/a>. The two motorsports journalists played a hypothetical \u2013 if they were in charge of NASCAR, what would they change about the sport? <\/p>\n

Bianchi started out, and he had some hot takes. His plan had five main pillars of change. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I\u2019m going to start with this, I have five categories, I separated them out into: schedule, team-specific issues, playoffs, competition, or the business side,\u201d Bianchi said. \u201cYou tell me, Jeff, where you want to go first.\u201d <\/p>\n

Among the ideas Bianchi had was a shortened, 30-race season. In that format, he would eliminate most two-date tracks to only a single race. Then, he\u2019d get rid of the NASCAR Clash, but keep the All-Star Race. On top of that, Bianchi would like to see teams limited to no more than three cars, including Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing. <\/p>\n

The longtime NASCAR journalist is also for keeping a playoff system. He says that he prefers a 10-race \u201cChase\u201d format, or a similar format that splits those races, five and five. Sounds like we\u2019re overcomplicating things just to say we are keeping the playoffs. But I digress. <\/p>\n

On top of those changes, Bianchi would institute things like a cost cap, get rid of technical alliances, and do more to even the playing field, so to speak. A lot of change under Czar Bianchi, that\u2019s for sure. <\/p>\n

Where does NASCAR go with championship format? <\/p>\n

If you have been listening to the rumors around NASCAR\u2019s future championship format, you may be hearing conflicting things. For the most part, it seems that there are three options, and two are more likely than the other. There is the 3-3-4 format with or without eliminations in each round. Then there is the old 10-race Chase format. Finally, a return to glory, a 36-race format. <\/p>\n

Right now, it feels like the 10-race Chase or the 36-race format is going to be most likely. Those are preferred against elimination-style playoffs and the overall 3-3-4 format. Above all else, NASCAR fans want to see the championship become more simple and easy to explain. <\/p>\n

One of the biggest barriers to NASCAR is people don\u2019t understand it. It\u2019s hard to understand the nuances of oval racing. Breaking beyond the stereotypes is hard as well. So, there\u2019s a lot of lifting just to convince someone to tune in. Complicated points formats and playoffs and eliminations, and stage racing \u2013 every single one of those is a barrier to entry for new fans. <\/p>\n

Learning the sport of American stock car racing can be difficult enough. It\u2019s a long, arduous season. Making it so regular sports fans have to sit down and read the rules to your championship like they\u2019re studying for their midterms is a surefire way to turn people away. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the NASCAR offseason in full swing, it\u2019s time to do some offseason exercises. For instance, fixing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-275615","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\/275615","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=275615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}