A response to Pete Pistone and Mike Bagley on the NASCAR Playoffs 

I appreciate the support, but let me reiterate: make sure we're challenging the arguments, not the people. Pete, Mike, and other fans who defend and enjoy the system have a right to do so as well.

This is the perfect argument to make. I appreciate this video for so many reasons. I'm 34, and I remember every championship season since 1993. For me and my dad, we still care who wins the championship(especially if it's a Chevrolet driver). But, we don't look at the champion the same as we did prior to 2014 and especially prior to 2004. At least with the original Chase, there were 10 races and only 10 drivers in which that culminated into awarding a champion.

The playoff system is interesting, because it brings added value to the final races of the season, where the Toledo race in ARCA was basically all but meaningless in terms of points, it DOES take a little bit of the draw away from the race. However, I always bring up why is it that only at the end of the year does the points suddenly begin to matter? Why do the points not matter in Race 2? Race 30? Race 16? Giving the races the same weight in terms of points by removing the playoffs would free up the NASCAR calendar to do a lot more in terms of moving races around. The lack of a playoffs means the potential gauntlet round of Atlanta-Watkins Glen-Bristol is now just a really exciting stretch to the season. Maybe they throw in Daytona or Martinsville right before or after to really give the teams a 4 week blender. If NASCAR is so hell-bent on having a final four, fine, go for it, but don't do the playoffs. Reset the points for the top 4 drivers for the final race of the year if it matters so much to attendance for Phoenix, and throw in any driver within a race points into that reset. Is it fair? Hell no, but it does what NASCAR wants, and it rewards consistency for the most races possible without giving up NASCAR's "game 7" moment. I also wonder if the length of the schedule is a problem, because most drivers clinched around race 34 of a 36 race season, perhaps shortening the schedule would help drivers NOT clinch before the year is up. Plus, this would be very popular with anyone in the industry. 36+ weeks on the road is a grind. It's not worth it for many, despite their love for the sport.

Great video. Playoff system sucks

As I said a while ago: Nascar doesn't care about professionalism. They clearly want to be the only motorsport in the world with a silly scoring system like this, for the sole purpose of saying "That's right! We're not like the others!". What's more insulting is that this pretty much confirms they're just waiting for the old guard to die off. In their eyes, the veteran fans are the old men who yell at clouds.

It's said that a man builds up a business, the man's son expands it and finally, the man's grandson destroys it.

These two, and others who enjoy the Playoffs are absolutely free to enjoy them, and I won't disparage them for it. That being said, from all of the audio clips you shared, I feel they did not present a single legitimate counter point to favor the Playoffs. All they could provide were either fallacies or points that could also be used in favor of the season-long format, which ends up making their points completely moot. Such as, "We've had a playoff variation for almost 20 years. Why change it?" Well, the Latford system was in place for nearly 30 years and it changed. So, the Playoffs could easily change as well. And to be fair, I would challenge anybody who used that exact, "We've been doing X for Y years, why change it?" argument if they used it to defend the Latford system because it's not a strong argument to begin with. If what these guys said is their strongest arguments, then I'm still unconvinced. And I think you did a fantastic job countering their points! Very well constructed and polite arguments!

it's just saddening that there are a lot of people who work in NASCAR that are ass-kissing A LOT of things that have hurt NASCAR for almost 2 decades. I am sure a lot of those NASCAR people who only stick to NASCAR and that are used to the garbage gimmick and other bad things in NASCAR either do not know or forgot how actual Pure Auto Racing works. Don't get me wrong, Mike Bagley is one of the best MRN Radio reporters of our time. And Pete, idk, not a lot of opinions on him. Of course they have been in NASCAR longer than you and I being alive. It's just opinions like they say about The Chase rubs me the wrong way as a Motorsports fanatic and why they are very wrong. It's no surprise. They work for NASCAR. Of course they have to act like The Chase in NASCAR is the greatest thing ever to please the lower attention-spanned crowd who do not care about actual competition, fairness, and legitimacy. Only WWE-style entertainment and garbage reality shows. People who defend The Chase in not only NASCAR, but in auto racing in general are the worst people in racing and should not even watch racing. I do not respect those people because I think they are stupid. They do not know or forgot how actual competition of racing works and they are spoiled from fake entertainment. It's not 100% their fault tho. The blame also goes to the past 2 administrations of NASCAR and TV networks for making NASCAR into a clown show. Racing is supposed to be unique and not supposed to be comparable to ball sports and even WWE. There is nothing wrong drivers and race teams winning championships early. If The Chase in NASCAR is "so good and awesome", look at the ratings for the past 16 years. Nothing but decline. NASCAR and TV Networks would remove race tracks for having low ratings, but yet, The Chase gets to stay despite the ratings have gotten lower since 2007. Not only that, The Chase is not actually exciting. The Chase is so predictable. It's just the same formula but with different drivers. That is not fun to watch. Not only that, gimmicks like the chase encourage more danger on track and more respects being lost on track. But hey, that is "entertainment", right?? NASCAR claims they care about the safety of their drivers, cry about cost-cutting/saving money, but yet they encourage chaos and wrecked cars which causes teams money and that is a spit in the face of teams working hard to get the cars ready for each weekend thanks to various stupid gimmicks. People like Pete and Mike are the kind of people NASCAR is going after. The past 2 administrations want to get rid of race fans who know how racing works. They just care about fake entertainment and still try to normalize it. NASCAR Land is just sad. Remember the rumors of a potential NASCAR Split a while ago? I would love for that to happen. As for Parker.... I love how he slams F1 for stupidity, yet NASCAR has been a bad mess for almost 20 years and apparently he is cool with the gimmicks. Ridiculous. NASCAR is the way it is still because it only took 1 man and 1 administration to ruin what NASCAR was truly about. Nowadays, the current administrations are just basically the same thing. Sad.

The NASCAR Playoffs just seem redundant in today’s NASCAR. They worked in the Chase Era and in the Gen 6 era, as the way the cars were built gave high-budget operations a leg up on the competition, which lead to scenarios like Jimmie Johnson winning 5 consecutive titles in spite of The Chase. With the cars as close to “spec racing” as they have been, a racer from second-tier Trackhouse has as good a shot as a racer in the Hendrick stable. The Playoffs are redundant, because no matter how big of a points lead you can get in the Next Gen car, a couple bad races will reduce that lead to _nothing._ Even without the Playoffs, the “Every lap/point/race matters.” narrative won’t lose its validity as the Next Gen Cars are so heavily dependent on how the car chief sets the car up and how the driver wheels the car around the track.

Great video!

It's a tragedy people within this industry favor this nonsense. They don't appreciate actual form of racing. I think they don't even know how many changes we have seen with Chase or now Playoffs since 2004. They talk playoffs drivers but don't mention mid pack or backmarkers who also race for better results. They don't want to admit who is the best all year. Just who puts the best show and treat drivers like circus clowns. They really want to chase away motorsport fanatics in favor of those who have low attention span and it doesn't work. WHY? Because the system itself is complicating that it drains away all your brain cells trying to figure out how it all works. The season long points system, it took seconds to explain. Whoever has most points at season end wins the title. Simple as that. Do they also forget there's also young folks who don't like playoffs like me. I watched NASCAR since 2007 only to later on learn the flaws of the Chase. Man this Bias on NASCAR news coverage is strong and those two men didn't do their job they supposed to be doing. I'm at this point just rooting for bad viewership bad enough that it would force NASCAR to change the playoffs.

Its Totally Stupid that the Media, Suck up this Stupid NASCAR Playoff format. It makes Drivers do Desperate and Stupid Moves and the win and you're in, Stage Racing and One Race to Decide a Champion does not Help NASCAR in Both Legitimacy, At Track Attendance and Ratings I hope NASCAR Goes to a Full Season Points Format just like Every other Motorsport in the World 1st - 125 2nd - 100 3rd - 80 4th - 60 5th - 45 6th - 40 7th - 35 8th - 30 9th - 25 10th - 20 11th - 18 12th - 16 13th - 14 14th - 12 15th - 11 16th - 10 17th - 9 18th - 8 19th - 7 20th - 6 21st - 5 22nd - 4 23rd - 3 24th - 2 25th - 1