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<\/p>\nNASCAR Hall of Fame member Mark Martin says NACAR never listened to him when he was a competitor in the sport, but when the sanctioning body decided to revamp its championship format, he was determined to make them pay attention to him.<\/p>\n
From the first meeting a year ago, Martin never relinquished his stance that the sport needed to return to its roots. That a series champion should be determined over the entire season and playoffs eliminated. His tenacious stance on the subject was akin to a bulldog fighting for a choice piece of meat. So, when NASCAR announced on Monday that it was returning to the Chase format that made its debut in 2004, Martin was smiling.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think that this is the most perfect compromise that you could ever ask for,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThis is a win. Thirty-six would have been great, but this is great. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a miracle that we came this far, because, honestly, NASCAR never listened to me when I raced. They listened to a few people, but it wasn\u2019t me. So, for me, it\u2019s the biggest win I\u2019ve ever had with NASCAR.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin admitted he didn\u2019t believe the Chase format NASCAR announced Monday would be adopted. In fact, he said he was \u201creal surprised\u201d when he received a telephone call from NASCAR last week telling him its decision and asking him to attend the press conference.<\/p>\n
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David Jensen\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly thought it would be a 4-4-3 or 3-3-4 (race format),\u201d Martin said. \u201cI actually was afraid it was a 4-4-3. That was what was floated by prominent people in the industry on the committee. No one inside NASCAR thought we could really get to this. (But) because we fought, we got something that really will work. This really fixes a lot. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe fans that don\u2019t understand weren\u2019t in those meetings and didn\u2019t know how strong that everyone in those meetings believed that playoffs were critical. That eliminations were critical. That\u2019s what those fans were fighting against and that\u2019s what I was fighting against.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin flew from California to North Carolina to participate in the press conference announcing this year\u2019s championship format. He noted that if he didn\u2019t support the Chase format, he wouldn\u2019t have attended the announcement at NASCAR Productions.<\/p>\n
Related Story<\/p>\n
Returning to the format that was in existence 2004-2013 means the win-and-you\u2019re-in scenario is gone. Stage breaks and the awarding of Stage points in the races remain. After the season\u2019s 26th race, the top 16 Cup drivers in the point standings will participate in the 10-race Chase. In the O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series, the Chase will consist of the standings top 12 and 10 drivers, respectively. Race winners will now receive 55 points instead of the 40 that were previously awarded. The top driver at the end of the regular season will receive a 25-point cushion over the second seed. <\/p>\n
There will be no more eliminations, no more cut-off races and no more resetting of points throughout the Chase. <\/p>\n
![\"dodge](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mark-martin-driver-of-the-u-s-army-chevrolet-gets-into-his-news-photo-1768273558.pjpeg.jpeg\" "\\"Dodge")
Elsa\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Mark Martin in 2007, during the previous Chase era.<\/p>\n
NASCAR President Steve O\u2019Donnell noted that Martin was the first person to advocate for a return to the full-season point system that existed from NASCAR\u2019s first year in 1948 through 2003. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of folks who wanted to throw Mark out of the room initially,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cBut what Mark did was get us to a position of what\u2019s the right balance? We believe we have struck that balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin, who won 96 races across NASCAR\u2019s three national touring series, refused to budge on his full-season stance throughout the discussions. However, he came to realize that developing the championship format was more complicated than fans realized due to contractual agreements between teams, their sponsors, their drivers and the tracks. He noted that the compromise that was reached meant no contracts had to be rewritten. <\/p>\n
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A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR Hall of Fame member Mark Martin says NACAR never listened to him when he was a competitor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,171150,784,1642,634,171149,82],"class_list":["post-405860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-8b797e0b-a09f-4904-b1f7-300ce2b0f6dc","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-mark-martin-helped-steer-nascar-back-to-its-roots","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405860","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=405860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}