{"id":34404,"date":"2025-07-24T19:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/34404\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:00:08","slug":"ryan-blaney-calls-out-mickey-mouse-nascar-playoff-critics-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/34404\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Blaney calls out \u2018Mickey Mouse\u2019 NASCAR Playoff critics – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

2023 NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> champion Ryan Blaney<\/a> is the latest driver to weigh in on the ongoing debate surrounding the playoff format. The current structure has come under the spotlight of late, after Hall of Famer Mark Martin called for the elimination-style system to be dropped<\/a>, prompting the likes of legendary crew chief Larry Reynolds to give his unfiltered thoughts.<\/p>\n

The current system, which sees drivers qualify for the playoffs until the final 10 races during which they are whittled down to the final winner, has been in place since 2004, before which the season\u2019s champion was decided by which driver amassed the most points through the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of bugs me a little bit is the people that are so diehard on like if you’ve won a championship in this format, that we have now, like, \u2018Oh, it’s a Mickey Mouse championship, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t count,\u2019\u201d Team Penske\u2019s Blaney said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio,<\/a>\u00a0following his eighth-place finish at Dover in the Autotrader EchoPark 400<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s like, man, everyone has the same opportunity as the guy who won it. This isn’t the full season points. Everyone always talks about, \u2018Oh, you know this guy’s, you would have won the full season points.\u2019 Well, that’s great, but we haven’t used that format in 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back at his title-winning season, Blaney noted how after \u201ca good year,\u201d his No. 12 team, \u201chad a better playoffs than everyone else,\u201d adding that he believes his team \u201crose to the occasion when we needed to and we dug in and we were the best car during the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, everyone can have their opinion. It gets under my skin a little bit when they’re like, \u2018You guys don’t didn’t deserve that championship.\u2019 It’s like, what are you talking about, man? Like we went through the grinder, everyone digs in, and you know, we were resilient when it mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blaney won the 2023 title, having reached the playoffs with just one race win under his belt, while Martin Truex Jr. was crowned the regular season champion. However, postseason wins at Talladega and Martinsville helped Blaney best Kyle Larson by a single point and William Byron by two, come the checkered flag at Phoenix.<\/p>\n

Despite having benefited from the current format, Blaney also admitted he wouldn\u2019t be opposed to one major change, noting<\/a> how he isn\u2019t \u201ca massive fan of like the one race take all type deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you have to have at least a handful of races in there to the end where it’s a little bit of consistency, which consistency in this playoff format does matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2025 playoffs are set to kick off at Darlington Raceway on August 31 with the Cook Out Southern 500 the first of three Round of 16 races. Come September 21, the three-race Round of 12 will begin with a trip to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the USA Today 301.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Motor Speedway will welcome the Round of 8 with the South Point 400 on October 12 before Phoenix Raceway hosts the NASCAR Cup Series Championship four races later on November 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney is the latest driver to weigh in on the ongoing debate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[28493,425,28492,28494,8656,99],"class_list":["post-34404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-mickey-mouse-championship","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-playoff-format","tag-playoff-system-changes","tag-ryan-blaney","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34404","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=34404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}