{"id":132428,"date":"2025-09-04T14:28:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T14:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/132428\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T14:28:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T14:28:03","slug":"richard-petty-on-same-page-with-mark-martin-on-changing-nascar-championship-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/132428\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Petty on same page with Mark Martin on changing NASCAR championship – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Petty has urged NASCAR to do away with the playoff system and return to a season-long race for the Cup Series title,<\/a> dubbing the current format a \u201cbunch of crap.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second race of the Cup Series<\/a> playoffs will be held at World Wide Technology Raceway in Illinois on Sunday, with drivers hoping to secure their place in the Round of 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASCAR<\/a> has ended its season with playoffs since 2004, and although it has produced plenty of drama, it has been a huge source of debate among fans in recent years. Many feel that the playoff system means consistent success is not rewarded fairly, with Joey Logano getting plenty of heat for the manner of his three championships.<\/a><\/p>\n

Former NASCAR star Mark Martin has been among the most outspoken critics of the playoffs, calling for them to be scrapped.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven-time Cup Series champion Petty has echoed Martin\u2019s comments. The 88-year-old is of the belief that results over the entirety of the season should decide the championship, rather than just the 10 playoff races.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, I\u2019m still from the old school. I\u2019m with Martin, that they start races in February and you run all year to November and it\u2019s, \u2018OK, who was the best that year?\u2019 They should be champion,\u201d Petty told The Athletic.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they give points for leading different [stages] in the race and they give points for all this other stuff, that\u2019s a bunch of crap, OK?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re sitting there and watching a football game and the team has been behind the whole game and they kick a field goal and they win the game, the guys who lost got a zero. That should be the same way in NASCAR racing.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care if you lead 499 laps of a 500-lap race \u2014 if you get beat, then you\u2019re not the winner, and you shouldn\u2019t have any [extra] points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to modernize stuff, and they\u2019re trying to keep up with other sports. They\u2019re trying to come up with new ideas. And so far, I haven\u2019t seen any of them really working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin, 66, believes the playoffs have cheapened the race for the title, bringing \u201cmanufactured drama\u201d to the Cup Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be honest with you, at first, I like those eliminations because I felt like it brought drama, you know, every three races in the last 10 brought some drama,\u201d he told Frontstretch <\/a>in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a while, it winds up being manufactured drama, and there\u2019s a total difference, and the race fans can see it as well as I.<\/p>\n

\u201cManufactured drama isn\u2019t the same as the real racing drama, and we get drama all the time now in NASCAR, because we\u2019ve manufactured it, but we don\u2019t appreciate it like we did backward, 1992, for example, or \u201997. There were a lot of points races that were very compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Petty has urged NASCAR to do away with the playoff system and return to a season-long race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[83584,18489,1960,425,14757,75371,99],"class_list":["post-132428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-championship-format-debate","tag-mark-martin","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-playoffs","tag-richard-petty","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}