{"id":346307,"date":"2025-12-15T07:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T07:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346307\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T07:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T07:44:10","slug":"nascar-icon-mark-martin-offers-2-word-verdict-as-racing-series-revives-traditional-scoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346307\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Icon Mark Martin Offers 2-Word Verdict As Racing Series Revives Traditional Scoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas came early for NASCAR<\/a> Hall of Famer Mark Martin as one of grassroots racing\u2019s most respected series announced a return to its traditional roots.<\/p>\n

While the stock car world continues to process the fallout from NASCAR\u2019s charter trial, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series revealed plans to reinstate a season-long points format beginning in 2026, drawing a blunt yet enthusiastic two-word endorsement from the 40-time Cup Series winner.<\/p>\n

NASCAR Legend Mark Martin Applauds Dirt Racing\u2019s Return to a Season-Long Championship<\/p>\n

The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series\u2019 decision marks a significant philosophical shift after three seasons\u00a0of its \u201cChase for the Championship\u201d format, which mirrored the playoff structures seen in NASCAR and other major series.<\/p>\n

Announced during the tour\u2019s postseason banquet in Indianapolis, the move signals a renewed emphasis on consistency, longevity, and week-to-week performance, values long associated with dirt racing\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yeah!\u201d Martin wrote<\/a>, summing up the sentiment shared by a sizable portion of the racing community that has grown weary of playoff-style experiments creeping into nearly every corner of the sport.<\/p>\n

Series director Rick Schwallie framed the change not as a retreat, but as a natural evolution. The playoff experiment, he noted, helped elevate the tour\u2019s profile, attract new corporate partners, and significantly boost the championship points fund, which now exceeds $1.2 million.<\/p>\n

That financial commitment will remain intact when the traditional format returns, along with new late-season bonus incentives expected to be unveiled before Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the 2026 season, we are going to return to a traditional points format next year and go away from the Chase format,\u201d Schwallie stated<\/a>. \u201cWe tried something. We wanted to elevate our program. We more than doubled our points fund in that time. In those three years, we had clients like Big River Steel and ARP that helped us doing that, and really we wouldn\u2019t be here, over $1.2 million today (for the points fund), if it wasn\u2019t for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 season will feature an ambitious 58-race schedule spanning 26 tracks in 15 states, ushering in a new chapter both on and off the track. The upcoming season will also mark the first under new ownership, marking the end of Lucas Oil\u2019s two-decade stewardship of the series, which began in 2005.<\/p>\n

The transition follows the series\u2019 deepening partnership with FloSports, which first secured exclusive streaming rights in 2022 before ultimately stepping into a broader leadership role.<\/p>\n

As part of the agreement, Lucas Oil Products will continue its long-standing commitment to the sport through a multi-year exclusive title sponsorship with FloSports, ensuring the LOLMDS name and its connection to fans, teams, and drivers remain firmly intact for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christmas came early for NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin as one of grassroots racing\u2019s most respected series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-346307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346307","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=346307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}