{"id":215251,"date":"2025-09-10T10:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215251\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T10:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:25:17","slug":"dale-jr-rips-nascar-playoff-format-with-blunt-joey-logano-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215251\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Jr. Rips NASCAR Playoff Format With Blunt Joey Logano Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDon\u2019t say it\u2019s not legit\u2026 Just because it didn\u2019t work for you, it doesn\u2019t mean change the rules.\u201d Joey Logano put forward this bold opinion about the NASCAR playoff system recently. Yet he himself was close to falling on a slippery slope. The Team Penske driver entered Gateway three points below the elimination line. Banking on the superb strategies of crew chief Paul Wolfe, Logano accrued 8 points in stage 2 and clinched a top-five finish. However, his maneuvers did not dazzle Dale Jr.<\/p>\n

Watch What\u2019s Trending Now!<\/p>\n

Under NASCAR\u2019s current elimination format, Joey Logano has won three Cup Series championships. And last year\u2019s title run sparked a hot debate in the sport, as Logano had the worst average finish for a champion in NASCAR\u2019s Modern Era. You can guess that Dale Jr. took the opposite side of Logano\u2019s opinion in this debate.<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Dale Jr. credits the strategy more than the racing<\/strong><\/p>\n

The root of the playoff debate probably lies in the 2024 Charlotte Roval race. Joey Logano could reverse his elimination in the Round of 12 finale only due to Alex Bowman\u2019s post-race tech penalty. Immediately after that, the No. 22 Ford driver won in Las Vegas \u2013 although the circumstances were not exactly championship-worthy. Christopher Bell led a race-best 155 of the 267 laps and won Stage 2. But since he pitted 35 laps later than Logano, he could not beat Paul Wolfe\u2019s 30-second pit strategy advantage. Logano led the final 6 laps to win, optimizing fuel strategy like he did in Nashville. As last Sunday\u2019s Gateway race finish also largely relied on Wolfe\u2019s impeccable strategy, Dale Jr. threw a shadow of doubt over Logano\u2019s championship caliber \u2013 and mainly NASCAR\u2019s playoff format.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis format is more about being great on one singular day, the rest of the season be damned,\u201d Dale Jr. said in a recent Dale Jr. Download episode. He shed light on Logano\u2019s lack of success<\/a> in the regular season, which ultimately did not matter in the playoffs. \u201cWhere was he in the playoffs when the regular season ended? Probably 200 out. He just got handed a 150 points\u2026 Remember Vegas? Was he even good that day? \u2026He was running so average that he just could do the fuel mileage. Joey Logano is a f\u2014\u2014 champion, he is a bada\u2013 race car driver. But\u2026you can\u2019t tell me there\u2019s a strategy. Nobody\u2019s going into Vegas going, we\u2019re gonna run 14th all day and then f\u2014 them on fuel mileage.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\"article-image\"\/<\/p>\n

via Imago<\/p>\n

Joey Logano won the 2024 Cup Series title with a 17.1 average finish and had the 12th-most points scored in the season. In 2025, he owns just 8 top tens and 4 top fives \u2013 and yet is in contention to win a title yet again. That is why Dale Jr.<\/a> credited another entity at Team Penske more than Logano. He said, \u201cThey weren\u2019t better than other teams. They just happened to be running poor enough to do the fuel mileage\u2026If he was great, running in the top three or the top five, they wouldn\u2019t have ever considered the fuel mileage, possibly\u2026And he runs poorly enough to be actually eliminated at the Roval\u2026I don\u2019t give Penske all the credit. It\u2019s Paul, it\u2019s Mr. Wolfe\u2026He used to be Brad\u2019s crew chief when he won the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidently, Dale Jr. and Joey Logano are at loggerheads over the playoff<\/a> format. Meanwhile, NASCAR is rapidly moving towards a change, although it depends on something.<\/p>\n

When the big buck rules the sport<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soon after Joey Logano<\/a>\u2018s clutch championship in 2024, NASCAR instituted a committee to tweak the playoff format. Consisting of current and former drivers, team owners, sport officials, and others, the committee had an aim. That was to create a format \u201cthat would crown the most \u2018deserving\u2019 champion and deliver enough entertainment to increase television ratings while running head-to-head with the NFL on fall Sundays,\u201d as per The Athletic. It held two meetings, one before the Daytona 500 in February and the other before the Coca-Cola 600 in May. However, the final decision largely depends on NASCAR\u2019s media partners.<\/p>\n

In late 2023, the sport signed a $7.7 billion media rights deal<\/a>, but the dividends have been slow. The Athletic reported, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t appear that using the elimination playoff format versus previous formats has made any material impact. The average viewership for the final 10 races of seasons in this era was within a half percentage point of the same races in the previous \u201cChase\u201d era \u2014 also a 10-race playoff format, but without elimination rounds.\u201d Although this signals a positive future for Dale Jr. and other hopeful veterans, negotiation is left. NASCAR is still locked in discussions with NBC Sports and other major partners before reaching a final agreement.<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

With emotions rising over NASCAR\u2019s playoff system, let\u2019s wait and see how the debate ends. Dale Jr. and Joey Logano may stick to their opinions till the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDon\u2019t say it\u2019s not legit\u2026 Just because it didn\u2019t work for you, it doesn\u2019t mean change the rules.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":215252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-215251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115179521768720895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}