“It Looks Pretty Solid to Me!” Chase Elliott Endorses Scrapping Playoffs for Legacy Format

2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott made a solid case on the need to drop the playoff format.

“It Looks Pretty Solid to Me!” Chase Elliott Endorses Scrapping Playoffs for Legacy Format

Chase Elliott (via Hendrickmotorsports.com)

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The championship format debate has yet again become one of the major points of contention in the NASCAR community, with just five more races left in the 2025 regular season. 2020 Bill France Cup winner Chase Elliott is the most recent driver to argue in favor of changing the “Chase” system that has yielded him a championship five years ago.

Ahead of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway race weekend, the No:9 Chevy driver was asked about the calls to change the format. Chase Elliott in response urged NASCAR to go back to the full season points system, the legacy format widely used in the Motorsports championships around the world to crown the champions.

He argued in favour of the change highlighting how competitive the regular season championship has been in the Next-Gen Era. From 2022, when Elliott won the regular season title to last season, that last race before those playoffs determined the winner, with multiple drivers being in contention coming into the event. So, the argument that the old format lacks the entertainment factor is wrong.

We’ve had a really good and competitive battle to the regular season (championship) over — correct me if I’m wrong — the last two or three years. It’s really been pretty tight all the way down to Daytona. If you just take that as your sample set over the first 26 weeks.

Chase Elliott said via Jeff Gluck.

So, he wants NASCAR to explore the idea of just expanding the system used for the first 26 races of the season to the rest of the year and eliminate the playoffs. He then addressed the possibility of one driver dominating the proceedings and being crowned the champion earlier in the season and pointed out that the racing community should celebrate such dominance. The star driver seems to be wanting to win a title just like his father Bill Elliott did back in the day.

The system would be just fine if you just had a full season. And if somebody runs away with it, so what? Let’s celebrate the fact that somebody ran away with it, that somebody was just that good.  Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that til I get done.

Chase Elliott declared.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. backs Chase Elliott’s assertion

Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. Came across the comments made by the most popular driver of the sport and shared his thoughts online. He believes the Chevy driver made a great point and he doesn’t have any arguments against it. Dale Jr. has been one of the many veterans of ten sports that has been campaigning for at least a bigger sample size of races before crowning the champion.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Via IMAGO)

I can’t argue with this.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrote on X.

While the arguments made by Chase Elliott are solid, there are some concerns. The attitude towards racing from drivers will change big time if the format is changed and the possibility of having the same level of competition as it is now is low, as points will be given priority over race wins and there will be less and less racers taking risks.

One of the drivers that will get benefited the most and will adjust to the system easily, will be Chase Elliott. His strategy over the years has been conservative, aimed at scoring maximum points and finishing at the front, instead of going for the win every time. It would be interesting to see if the debate is going to inspire NASCAR to make changes to the playoff format.

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