On Friday (Nov. 8), NASCAR Executive VP & Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell addressed reporters, including those of Frontstretch, in his annual championship weekend press conference and spoke on the state of the sport at Phoenix Raceway. O’Donnell was quick to defend the hot topic: NASCAR’s current stance on the playoffs when asked if any changes were to be made after the recent fallout surrounding events at Martinsville Speedway.
“The format is one thing, but we’re not going to go away from playoffs,” O’Donnell said during the press conference. “We read fans. We will as we always do. We’ll absolutely look at what form the playoffs take in the offseason. … We are always looking if there are opportunities for us to tweak something, so be it.”
O’Donnell was taking the heat after last week’s controversial climax to the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 8. Title contender Christopher Bell was penalized and eliminated from the Championship 4, putting William Byron in and sending the stock car racing world into a frenzy of conversation that has lasted into this weekend’s season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
It was a conversation that only intensified two days later when the teams of Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon were penalized for their alleged involvement of late-race manipulation.
Regardless of opinion, all of these consequences stemmed from what has become a controversial and hotly debated subject in the stock car world: the existence of the postseason itself.
But the future of the playoffs isn’t just on the minds of the fan base. When driver availability opened Saturday morning at Phoenix Raceway, drivers spoke to reporters on their opinions of what possible evolutions NASCAR’s postseason format could take in the future, if any at all.
Among those who called for change, or perhaps the disposal of the playoffs altogether, on social media after the Martinsville race was elder NASCAR statesman Brad Keselowski.
He went into further detail in Phoenix.
“I think you have to go back and ask yourself just one key question of what are we trying to achieve?” Keselowski told reporters. “And then everything should just connect to that. To me, what we’re trying to achieve is we all want this sport to be a major sport, and the easiest measurement of that is our fans’ sentiment and fans vote through their butts…
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