Dale Earnhardt Jr sums up Denny Hamlin’s argument | Sports News

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

The present iteration of the Cup Series playoffs has had its truthful share of detractors, from present stars like Hamlin to former stars like Mark Martin. And now, Earnhardt is the most recent legend to share their ideas on the matter. 

Currently, the playoffs are cut up into 4 rounds, with 4 of the 16 drivers being eradicated till 4 stay within the remaining spherical, with the best perfoming driver being named champion. Many drivers think about the present format troublesome, which is why NASCAR is reevaluating a one-race championship. 

On a current episode of ‘Dale Jr. Download,‘ the NASCAR legend defined how the game is lacking one essential facet, not less than in his opinion, which ties into the critiques different drivers had had. “I’m still a race fan and I still want to be avid about this sport,” he stated 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 technique to punctuate his level, Earnhardt recalled a story of one of his father’s races and how earlier iterations of the Cup Series lent itself to more beautiful 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 main the race, 200, 250 laps into a 500 lapper at Bristol. It’s a night time race. He comes sliding down the entrance straightaway backwards on 4 flat tires. And I knew in that second, I used to be like, ‘This is a chunk of factors we will not afford to lose. It was tremendous, tremendous emotional. It was like a intestine punch.”

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

“The highs aren’t as high and the lows aren’t as low since you’re within the playoffs, it is OK,” he posited. “You do not go on that journey 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 these issues would occur, I needed to see the subsequent 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 subsequent 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 subsequent step is NASCAR goes to get its management in place and actually have a dialogue and lock ourselves in a room and determine 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.”