{"id":410208,"date":"2026-01-15T05:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T05:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410208\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T05:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T05:09:08","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-reveals-he-was-falling-out-of-love-with-nascar-during-playoff-format-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410208\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals he was ‘falling out of love’ with NASCAR during playoff format run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. did not hold back when discussing NASCAR\u2019s previous championship run that was more of a traditional playoff format. On Dale Jr. Download<\/a>, Earnhardt opened up about how the playoff format was preventing him from having the same passion for NASCAR as he did when he was younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we had the full season points, you couldn\u2019t take a week off as a fan because that race might be the race where your guy breaks a motor and gives up 180 points,\u201d Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. \u201cThat race that\u2019s in the middle of the year that seems like it\u2019s not really that important could be the one that loses you the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had lost that. I had lost that. I was not being drawn to the sport every weekend. I was not wanting to devour it up. I was sitting there going, \u2018You know what, I kind of know who\u2019s in the playoffs. I can kind of check out. I\u2019ll see the highlights in the middle of the week. I can miss this one. I don\u2019t need to tune in today.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was \u2018not drawn\u2019 to NASCAR races under the playoff format <\/p>\n

Earnhardt went on to say that he was \u201cnot drawn\u201d to the races before NASCAR went to The Chase format<\/a> to determine a champion. \u201cI\u2019m careful to admit this because f**k me man, I\u2019m a broadcaster. I got all kinds of roles and responsibilities,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that hurts my position in the sport to say s**t, I was falling out of love with it. I really was.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the previous format, the top 16 drivers qualified for the playoffs, with the bottom four drivers eliminated after three races. Drivers qualified for the playoffs by winning a race in the regular season or finishing in the top 16 in points. <\/p>\n

With The Chase, winning a race in the regular season doesn\u2019t guarantee a driver a spot in the postseason. And for drivers who win a race in the regular season, they will earn 55 points instead of 40. NASCAR fans will see how The Chase plays out when it starts on Sept. 6 at Darlington. The regular season will start on Feb. 15 with the Daytona 500. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. did not hold back when discussing NASCAR\u2019s previous championship run that was more of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,14056,634,82],"class_list":["post-410208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dale-earnhardt-jr","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410208","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=410208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}