During a recent interview, NASCAR legend Richard Petty gave his take on the NASCAR playoff format and referred to NASCAR’s distribution of things like stage points as “a bunch of crap.”
As NASCAR’s all-time winningest driver and all-time leader in career starts, Richard Petty’s opinion on the sport will always carry more weight than others. With the ongoing debate about NASCAR’s points system, it only felt like a short amount of time until The King chimed in with his take on the sport’s current championship format.
Though NASCAR has used a form of playoff system since 2004, the 2014 switch to a round-based elimination playoff with a single race finale has slowly lost favorability with a growing portion of the fanbase. This has led to three camps forming: those who support the playoffs, those who want change to the current playoffs, and those who support a return to the past formats.
During a recent interview with Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, Petty was asked about what system he thinks NASCAR should use to crown its champion. To no surprise, Petty, much like fellow Hall of Famer Mark Martin, offered his support for the traditional full-season points system, tracking points from Daytona to Phoenix.
“I’m still from old school, I guess,” Petty said. “I’m with (Mark) Martin on that. They start the races in February, and you run all year to November. ‘Okay, who was the best that year? They should be champion.'”
But then the seven-time champion turned his attention to how NASCAR awards points as well, saying that “points for leading different segments in the race,” or stage points, and points for “all this other stuff” are “a bunch of crap.”
“I don’t care if you lead 499 laps of a 500-lap race, and you get beat, then you’re not the winner, and you shouldn’t have any points,” Petty said.
In his opinion, these changes are part of a broader movement to modernize the sport and keep up with the changing sports industry. But, despite all the changes he has seen, none are working out for NASCAR.
“They’re trying to modernize stuff. They’re trying to keep up with other sports. They’re trying to come up with new ideas, and so far, I haven’t seen any of them really working,” Petty said.
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