None would have been happier than Mark Martin when NASCAR announced on Monday that it would adopt the previously used Chase format for the 2026 Cup Series season. The veteran driver had spent more than a year beating the drum to grab NASCAR’s attention, arguing that the current playoff format is not what fans want.
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Now that Martin has finally achieved what he wanted, at least to a large degree, he could not help but be emotional. He was in the room with NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell when the decision was announced. When asked later by the press how difficult the journey had been, Martin acknowledged the challenge, especially with few supporters beyond the fans themselves pushing for a full-season championship format.
Martin answered, “I was 50% embarrassed and 50% concerned that I had tarnished the respect I had in the industry. It was pretty ugly. You could hear a pin drop. I was the first one to speak. To open it up. I just laid it out there.
“Because, they need that. Everyone inside this circle, they can’t see outside the circle,” he added.
That circle consisted of the fans at the racetrack, but there were also millions more watching and following the sport from the outside. Martin believes he stayed connected with those fans and understood what they truly wanted. Every interaction he had reinforced the same message: they wanted the playoff format gone. Realizing that his voice could carry farther than theirs is what ultimately drove his deep involvement in the push for change.
I asked @markmartin how difficult it was to wake up each day, and he the guy beating the full-season championship drum as it wasn’t what the industry, outside of fans, seemed to want. He said he was 50% embarrassed, 50% worried he had tarnished his legacy in the sport. pic.twitter.com/n10h7LrsiS
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) January 12, 2026
After the first playoff committee meeting, Martin was almost sure that he would never get invited back with a seat at the table again. That’s how honest and raw his words had been. “I really felt like I embarrassed myself,” he said. ESPN’s Ryan McGee was also a part of this first meeting and he wrote in a recent article about how much of an impact Martin’s words had on the rest of the group.
“The 40-time race winner said aloud what everyone in the room already knew,” he penned. “It was the reason the committee had been formed in the first place. He said that those core fans felt disconnected because what they watched in NASCAR’s big leagues no longer resembled every other stop along the stock car racing ladder when it came to determining the best of the best.”
The tone that the veteran had set that day remained till Monday. Against his worries, he did get the invite to be a part of the committee again. What didn’t seem like a possibility though was to move the officials away from their fixed mindset about the playoffs.
All hope seemed lost through several meetings until one day the stone finally began to budge. He continued, “We have come a long way. It was a hard fight. It was a lot harder than people understand.” Under the current format, all drivers will race for maximum points in the 26-race regular-season. The top 16 drivers will then gain eligibility to race for the title in the 10-race Chase.
While this isn’t what Martin truly wanted, he is content with how much of a change he has influenced and looks forward to a future where NASCAR is once again the popular sport that it once was.
