Dale Earnhardt Jr. seemingly backed Denny Hamlin’s argument for a change in NASCAR’s playoff format by sharing a story regarding his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr. 

The current iteration of the Cup Series playoffs has had its fair share of detractors, from current stars like Hamlin to former stars like Mark Martin. And now, Earnhardt is the latest legend to share their thoughts on the matter. 

Currently, the playoffs are split into four rounds, with four of the 16 drivers being eliminated until four remain in the final round, with the best perfoming driver being named champion. Many drivers consider the current format troublesome, which is why NASCAR is reevaluating a one-race championship. 

On a recent episode of ‘Dale Jr. Download,‘ the NASCAR legend explained how the sport is missing one crucial aspect, at least in his opinion, which ties into the critiques other drivers had had. “I’m still a race fan and I still want to be avid about this sport,” he said during the episode. 

“What I’m missing right now is the heavy drama that would play out in the regular season, in the middle of the season.” As a way to punctuate his point, Earnhardt recalled a story of one of his father’s races and how previous iterations of the Cup Series lent itself to more stunning finishes. 

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“I think dad was at Charlotte and he’s in a tight battle for the championship with Rusty and dad broke a crank or a cam at Charlotte in October,” he continued. “And when that cam broke and they’re neck and neck sort of for the points, I knew immediately in that moment that we’re going to leave this race at least 80 points out.

“Nineteen eighty-four, Bristol, dad’s in a battle for the championship with Terry Labonte, dad’s leading the race, 200, 250 laps into a 500 lapper at Bristol. It’s a night race. He comes sliding down the front straightaway backwards on four flat tires. And I knew in that moment, I was like, ‘This is a chunk of points we can’t afford to lose. It was super, super emotional. It was like a gut punch.”

With how the playoffs are currently formatted, Earnhardt admitted that he doesn’t have “those moments anymore.”

“The highs aren’t as high and the lows aren’t as low because you’re in the playoffs, it’s OK,” he posited. “You don’t go on that ride anymore.

“And the regular season is just kind of a thing that happens. We don’t go to a race in the summer and leave the racetrack in pure elation because our driver just extended his points lead from 25 to 80, or he crawled out of a hole to get himself within sight of the points lead, or he blew a motor and he’s lost a ton of points that he might not crawl back.

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“When those things would happen, I had to see the next race.” Earnhardt concluded by stating that the races nowadays don’t have the same factor to draw in fans like it once did, with the NASCAR legend admitting that he would make sure to “see the next race” in the past. 

And while Earnhardt is just one of the many around the sport to ponder if a change in the playoff format would be beneficial, Mike Forde, NASCAR Managing Director of Communications, confirmed that any changes would take place after the 2025 season. 

“The next step is NASCAR is going to get its leadership in position and really have a discussion and lock ourselves in a room and figure it out from there,” he said on the ‘Hauler Talk’ podcast. “”We don’t want to announce a format prior to Phoenix and then have everyone either devalue this year’s championship or sort of make another set of points of who would be the champion if a new format was in place. So I think that would be after this year.”

He added: “I would be very surprised if the one-race championship is still around. That was a big talking point of we need a bigger sample size if we’re going to keep the playoffs, and the championship needs to be more than one race.”