Dale Jr. Rips NASCAR Playoff Format With Blunt Joey Logano Reality Check

“Don’t say it’s not legit…Just because it didn’t work for you, it doesn’t mean change the rules.” Joey Logano put forward this bold opinion about the NASCAR playoff system recently. Yet he himself was close to falling on a slippery slope. The Team Penske driver entered Gateway three points below the elimination line. Banking on the superb strategies of crew chief Paul Wolfe, Logano accrued points in stage 2 and clinched a top-five finish. However, his maneuvers did not dazzle Dale Jr.

Under NASCAR’s current elimination format, Joey Logano has won three Cup Series championships. And last year’s title run sparked a hot debate in the sport, as Logano had the worst average finish for a champion in NASCAR’s Modern Era. You can guess that Dale Jr. took the opposite side to Logano’s opinion in this debate.

Dale Jr. credits the strategy more than the racing

The root of the playoff debate probably lies in the 2024 Charlotte Roval race. Joey Logano could reverse his elimination in the Round of 12 finale only due to Alex Bowman’s post-race tech penalty. Immediately after that, the No. 22 Ford driver won in Las Vegas – although the circumstances were not exactly championship-worthy. Christopher Bell led a race-best 155 of the 267 laps and won Stage 2. But since he pitted 35 laps later than Logano, he could not beat Paul Wolfe’s 30-second pit strategy advantage. Logano led the final 6 laps to win, optimizing fuel strategy like he did in Nashville. As last Sunday’s Gateway race finish also largely relied on Wolfe’s impeccable strategy, Dale Jr. threw a shadow of doubt over Logano’s championship caliber – and mainly NASCAR’s playoff format.

“This format is more about being great on one singular day, the rest of the season be damned,” Dale Jr. said in a recent Dale Jr Download episode. He shed light on Logano’s lack of success in the regular season, which ultimately did not matter in the playoffs. “Where was he in the playoffs when the regular season ended? Probably 200 out. He just got handed a 150 points…Remember Vegas? Was he even good that day? …He was running so average that he just could do the fuel mileage. Joey Logano is a f—— champion, he is a badass race car driver. But…you can’t tell me there’s a strategy. Nobody’s going into Vegas going, we’re gonna run 14th all day and then f— them on fuel mileage.”

NASCAR, Motorsport, USA Cup Practice Nov 8, 2024 Avondale, Arizona, USA NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano 22 during practice for the NASCAR Championship race at Phoenix Raceway.

Joey Logano won the 2024 Cup Series title with a 17.1 average finish and had the 12th-most points scored in the season. In 2025, he owns just 8 top tens and 4 top fives – and yet is in contention to win a title yet again. That is why Dale Jr. credited another entity in Team Penske more than Logano. He said, “They weren’t better than other teams. They just happened to be running poor enough to do the fuel mileage…If he was great, running in the top three or the top five, they wouldn’t have ever considered the fuel mileage, possibly…And he runs poorly enough to be actually eliminated at the Roval…I don’t give Penske all the credit. It’s Paul, it’s Mr. Wolfe…He used to be Brad’s crew chief when he won the championship.”

Evidently, Dale Jr. and Joey Logano are at loggerheads over the playoff format. Meanwhile, NASCAR is rapidly moving towards a change, although it depends on something.

When the big buck rules the sport

Soon after Joey Logano‘s clutch championship in 2024, NASCAR instituted a committee to tweak the playoff format. Consisting of current and former drivers, team owners, sport officials, and others, the committee had an aim. That was to create a format “that would crown the most “deserving” champion and deliver enough entertainment to increase television ratings while running head-to-head with the NFL on fall Sundays,” as per The Athletic. It held two meetings, one before the Daytona 500 in February and the other before the Coca-Cola 600 in May. However, the final decision largely depends on NASCAR’s media partners.

In late 2023, the sport signed a $7.7 billion media rights deal, but the dividends have been slow. The Athletic reported, “It doesn’t appear that using the elimination playoff format versus previous formats has made any material impact. The average viewership for the final 10 races of seasons in this era was within a half percentage point of the same races in the previous “Chase” era — also a 10-race playoff format, but without elimination rounds.” Although this signals a positive future for Dale Jr. and other hopeful veterans, negotiation is left. NASCAR is still locked in discussion with NBC Sports and other major partners before reaching a final agreement.

With emotions rising for NASCAR’s playoff system, let’s wait and see how the debate ends. Dale Jr. and Joey Logano may stick to their opinions till the end.

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