“I don’t care how many points you score”: NASCAR consultant Steve Letarte raises the 'winning' bar with his playoff system

Joey Logano's third Cup Series title with the season's lowest average finishes, sparked questions about the legitimacy of the NASCAR playoff format. Recently, NBC's stock car racing analyst Steve Letarte was featured on Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin's Action Digital podcast and shed light on the potential changes that should be made in the current playoff format.

The current playoff format allows a driver to advance to the next round of playoffs without a win, which helped William Byron advance to the Championship Four race without a win in any of the playoff rounds. After securing his playoff qualification, Byron did not win any races since the first Martinsville race held in April.

The NASCAR consultant addressed the situation and shared his proposed tweaks to the existing format, placing greater emphasis on wins. He said:

"I'm gonna give you the Steve Letarte playoffs. you ready? Let's see it. You win a race. You're in the playoffs. I don't care about points. I'm not even gonna count them; I'll count them for the guys that don't make the playoffs. You win, and you're in. We may have six, who may have sixteen. I'm not even gonna set a number. The playoffs are only winners."

Letarte further mentioned that a driver would need to secure a win to advance to the next race, or else they would be eliminated from the championship fight.

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“It’s a waste of time”: NASCAR Hall of Fame driver's view about the playoff format change

Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. joined the ongoing playoff debate and gave his take. The current playoff format is getting heavily criticized, and many want the 10-race Chase system to be reinstated. However, Dale Jr. expressed his interest in the no-playoff format.

Reflecting upon Joey Logano's third title win and Kyle Larson's failure to secure his spot in the final fours, Dale Earnhardt Jr. expressed his wish to bring back the no-playoff format followed in 2004. In this format, drivers fight each other until the final race. He added (via Dirty Mo Media on X):

"I want them to go back to the original system of no playoffs. Never gonna happen, it's a waste of time to spend another minute."

Earnhardt Jr.'s co-host highlighted NASCAR's COO Steve O'Dennell's recent update on the playoff format and said:

"Here's what he (O'Donnell) did say, and this is why I think the conversation is open is, 'We'll absolutely look at what form the playoffs take in the off-season.' Does that mean we could get kind of what we want?" Kurland said (0:09).

"What they're doing there is just leaving themselves the opportunity to open that door if they feel like there's a ton of criticism, ton of pushback from the fans. Because let's face it whether they will admit it or nor, NASCAR absolutely ebbs and flows due to whatever might be the loudest conversation on social media," Earnhardt Jr. replied.

Junior concluded and emphasized that testing the format on a small event won't suffice and the sanctioning association should imply it on a bigger scale to find the accurate outcome.