Tony Stewart issues rare praise to NASCAR for – Sports News
Tony Stewart is in favor of NASCAR’s new playoff format (Image: Getty)
Tony Stewart gave a rare praise to NASCAR for enacting the revamped playoff format that will likely be used on the finish of the 2026 season.
The NASCAR legend joined the Racers Unchained podcast to dissect topics and tales starting from Stewart’s biggest profession moments, the business and politics of the game, and how he feels about the new playoff format that can see ‘The Chase’ reintroduced for the primary time in more than a decade.
A longstanding critic of NASCAR’s elimination-style playoff system, Stewart supplied praise to the game’s management who made the change many racing followers, drivers, and groups had been requesting for years. It comes as Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a dedication to help save a historic NASCAR monitor preventing demolition.
“I’m with the race fans on this,” Stewart advised Paul Tracy, host of Racers Unchained.
“What I didn’t like about, it, and I was ok with it on the 10-race deal, but what I don’t like about the current deal is you have somebody that’s not even in the playoffs make a mistake in front of you or crashes in front of you and you get collected in their mess, they’ve ruined your season.
Stewart raced in the Truck Series at Daytona in February (Image: Getty)
“Basketball, football, hockey, you name it, their playoff system, it’s head-to-head teams. Nobody’s taking you out of it that’s not supposed to be there,” Stewart stated.
In the outdated format, which was used from 2014 to 2025, the highest 16 drivers from the common season competed in a 10-race playoff divided into 4 rounds, beginning with the Round of 16 and culminating with the Championship 4.
Each of the primary three rounds lasted three races, and after every, the 4 lowest drivers within the standings had been eradicated from championship competition. It all led up to the Championship 4, the place the ultimate 4 drivers competed in a single race, with the highest finisher topped champion.
The major concern with this format, as Stewart famous, was that a non-playoff driver might derail a championship hopeful’s push at any level, particularly within the winner-take-all race on the finish of the season.
The NASCAR Cup Series will no longer be determined by an elimination-style playoff (Image: Getty)
The new playoff format, which is analogous to the unique ‘Chase for the Cup,’ NASCAR’s postseason setup from 2004 to 2013, makes it so one single race has much less of an affect on the Cup Series champion, and as a substitute complete factors earned over 10 races serves as the last word decider.
Stewart, a three-time Cup Series champion, has not been shy in his criticism of NASCAR brass, and never solely due to the playoff format.
The 54-year-old beforehand helped discovered the competing SRX collection, an various to NASCAR-style racing that featured motorsports stars from varied racing disciplines.
He has additionally been overtly essential of NASCAR’s constitution system, the identical system that was central to the not too long ago settled antitrust lawsuit involving Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing.
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