{"id":410431,"date":"2026-01-15T07:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410431\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T07:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:39:09","slug":"kyle-busch-reacts-to-nascar-returning-to-chase-championship-format-cites-major-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/410431\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch reacts to NASCAR returning to Chase championship format, cites major concern"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Busch shared some interesting thoughts on NASCAR returning to The Chase championship format<\/a> for the 2026 season and beyond. While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Busch revealed his reaction to NASCAR making the big change.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully it\u2019s better and people like it,\u201d Kyle Busch said, per Peter Stratta of TSJ Sports<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ll see how everybody attacks it and what they do in order to make the most of their opportunity to go race for championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch then pointed out one big concern about The Chase format. \u201cI remember when we had The Chase format. Getting wrecked once or twice, you\u2019re eliminated,\u201d he said. You have no chance at a championship. And with wrecks being a whole heck of a lot more these days of people running over people, maybe it will keep it even because everybody\u2019s getting wrecked in the final 10.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will going back to The Chase help Kyle Busch?<\/p>\n

The Chase is similar to NASCAR\u2019s original postseason format that was launched in 2004. Like the previous format, The Chase will happen during the final 10 races of the season, and the top 16 drivers will compete for a championship. And as Busch mentioned, a crash during the regular season could take a driver out of contention, as winning a regular-season race doesn\u2019t guarantee automatic entry into The Chase. <\/p>\n

\u201cWinning still had to matter. We had to make sure that was a big component of what we were doing. We certainly wanted consistency to matter,\u201d NASCAR President Steve O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cNot lost on us that throughout what we\u2019ve seen with the current format, there were times when a driver could win and maybe take a couple races because he had that win in the bank. That\u2019s not something we wanted. We wanted every race to matter. So both of those needed to be front and center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch knows all about The Chase, as he\u2019s competed in the Cup Series full-time since 2005. He\u2019s a two-time Cup Series champion, and the wins came after NASCAR made changes to the championship format (2015 and 2019). Busch is hoping the change can help him return to his winning ways since he has not won a race since April 2023. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch shared some interesting thoughts on NASCAR returning to The Chase championship format for the 2026 season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,8661,634,82],"class_list":["post-410431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410431","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=410431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}