\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful, except, we ain\u2019t playing. Nobody plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Martin comes from a different era of NASCAR. In fact, NASCAR couldn\u2019t be much further from the start of his career in stock car racing.<\/p>\n
Martin made his Cup debut in 1981. He won 40 NASCAR Cup Series races in his career. The now 66-year-old retired following the 2013 season. <\/p>\n
In the late stages of his career, NASCAR introduced stage racing, overtime finishes and the playoff format. <\/p>\n
Recently, NASCAR drivers have called for changes to the playoffs format. NASCAR themselves have expressed they are exploring changes. <\/p>\n
NASCAR is using AI to generate a new playoff format after criticism<\/a><\/p>\n Martin hates all of it\u2026<\/p>\n Mark Martin knocks the playoff format<\/p>\n \u201cThe word playoff is very catchy,\u201d Mark Martin stated via the Kenny Wallace podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful, except, we ain\u2019t playing. Nobody plays. And there\u2019s not two people out there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the same as ball sports. And, I don\u2019t like it being called playoffs because it\u2019s not a playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven the championship, last round, if it was really a playoff there\u2019d be four cars on the track, not 36.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like calling it overtime. I\u2019d rather call it green-white-checkered. Our races aren\u2019t timed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re trying to make it like ball sports because the TV people, and I\u2019ve heard this from some. They want the casual fan to be able to relate to the other ball sports. Because they think that those fans might watch.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf they flip over there and they\u2019re not a race fan but they see sparks flying and everybody running over each other on these restarts. They might watch. The problem is when that\u2019s not going on, they might not watch.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe old people. They\u2019ll watch it all. Except, they don\u2019t like what they\u2019re seeing now. So, maybe they won\u2019t. And, I think there\u2019s a problem with all that.\u201d<\/p>\n Martin later added that his own success feels cheapened by the current direction of NASCAR.<\/p>\n Christopher Bell feels \u2018cheated\u2019 after \u2018fixed\u2019 NASCAR playoff race<\/a><\/p>\n Mark Martin talks NASCAR<\/p>\n Denny Hamlin knocks the NASCAR playoff system<\/a><\/p>\n Links<\/p>\n Mark Martin<\/a> | NASCAR<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful, except, we ain\u2019t playing. Nobody plays.\u201d Mark Martin comes from a different era of NASCAR. In…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1418,1419,1406,1420,1421,1422,1423,1424,1425,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-cup-series","9":"tag-mark-martin","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-nascar-cup","12":"tag-nascar-playoff","13":"tag-nascar-playoffs","14":"tag-ncs","15":"tag-playoff","16":"tag-playoffs","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114718763097567520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","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=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}