Dale Jr Confesses He Was “Falling Out of Love” During NASCAR’s Playoff Era

What’s Happening?

Dale Earnhardt Jr revealed to fans that he was “falling out of love” with NASCAR during its playoff era, with the NASCAR Hall of Famer explaining how the system’s lack of week-to-week storylines kept him somewhat tuned out of the action.

Monday, when NASCAR announced that the Chase system would return for the 2026 season, the sport asked two legends to join them in making the announcement, NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt Jr and Mark Martin, both of whom were members of the NASCAR Playoff Committee and outspoken supporters of a full-season points system.

Though they may not have gotten their full-season system, both seemed elated at the return of the Chase and the end of the complex, reset-filled, Elimination Playoff System, first introduced to the sport in 2014.

During the press conference, Earnhardt stressed how the new system, much like a 36-race points system, encourages fans to tune in week in and week out to keep up with the full story of the season.

“I’m a fan of the sport, and now I’m compelled to plug in every single week because I know there’s a long-form objective for my driver to accomplish to be able to give himself the opportunity to win the championship,” Earnhardt said.

This is a sentiment he had shared throughout the past year, hoping that small moments early on in the season could factor into how the overall championship was decided.

A Week-to-Week Story

The 51-year-old expanded on these feelings during this week’s episode of The Dale Jr Download, saying that as a kid, he wanted to “devour” as much NASCAR as he could, feeling the need to tune into as much NASCAR content as possible at the time.

“I remember being a kid and just wanting to devour this sport'” Earnhardt said. “I couldn’t get enough. And so every weekend, I was like, ‘what’s going to happen?'”

Of course, growing up around the sport helped nurture this excitement, though the former Daytona 500 champion somewhat attributes this obsessive interest in NASCAR to the full-season points system.

“When we had the full season points, you couldn’t take a week off as a fan, ’cause that race might be the race where your guy breaks a motor and gives up 180 points. . . That race that’s in the middle of the year that seems like it’s not really that important could be the one that loses you the championship.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr

Under the Elimination Style Playoff Format, Earnhardt says that the sport lost that type of appointment viewing, as the nature of the playoffs, which reset at the points after 26 races, and every three races after that, resulted in weeks he felt that he could “miss this one.”

“I Was Falling Out of Love With It. I Really Was.”

This take may seem somewhat surprising, as Earnhardt runs one of NASCAR’s most popular weekly podcasts and serves as lead driver analyst for Prime Video and TNT Sports’ ten-race coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series.

That status as a member of the sport’s media seemed to keep Earnhardt from sharing how he truly felt about the playoffs, though, with the Elimination Style Playoff now in the review mirror, the third-generation star admitted he was “falling out of love” with NASCAR.

“I’m careful to admit this because, ***** hey, man, I’m a broadcaster. I got all kinds of roles and responsibilities. And so I don’t know if that hurts my position in the sport to say, ***** I was falling out of love with it. I really was.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr

Earnhardt says that during this time, he still loved motorsports, but not what NASCAR had created with the playoff, calling it gimmicky, contrived, complex, and hard to follow.

“The core of motorsports, I love, and the idea of getting cars together and putting them on a track and throwing a green flag and a checkered, I love that idea and always will. But what we were and had become was so far removed, and so gimmicky, and contrived, and complex, and hard to **** follow.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The complexity of the system, an often cited issue of many, one now removed from the sport with the reintroduction of the Chase, left Earnhardt not wanting to watch at times as “they’re just going to go all the way to Phoenix and four guys are going to see who goes and wins it.”  

“It’s too much potluck,” Earnhardt said. “It’s too much. It’s not enough. I need to really, truly watch this person build this body of work.”

Even though the grassroots campaign to bring back a 36-race points system did not win out, like many race fans, Earnhardt says he’s excited about the simplified Chase format.

In his eyes, the Chase, despite its lone reset after 26 races, gives drivers a chance to show early on just how worthy they are of winning the title, and thus a storyline for fans to follow from February to November, much like the 36-race point system did.

“I’m excited to tune into a race season where how you perform at Daytona, how you perform at Atlanta, how your season begins, is going to really sort of give you an idea of whether you’re championship worthy,” Earnhardt said.

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