Steve Letarte explains his preferred NASCAR playoff layout

There has been much talk about the NASCAR Playoffs and whether or not the current system should continue or undergo changes. Former crew chief Steve Letarte has a few ideas that he shared recently.

During his career working with drivers such as Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., Letarte won plenty of races. He also made quite a few runs at a championship.

Following Joey Logano’s championship, Letarte went on Denny Hamlin’s Actions Detrimental to talk about the season and the NASCAR Playoffs. Letarte has been burned by The Chase format before, 2007 in particular with Gordon losing a 400-point regular season lead to the points reset.

So, what does he think the answer is?

“Say it was a three-race championship, would, would you, because I don’t have a problem with the Logano championship, I’m not saying you do,” Letarte prefaced his statement. “But do you think the fans would have less to stand on if he was the best in a three-race finish? And I actually like the last three races. … Like, I think you can run Martinsville, Phoenix, Miami, and have a great combination of race tracks.”

Now, a three-race final round would be fantastic. It is something that many fans would be open to. The single-race finale has rubbed many the wrong way for too long.

Steve Letarte’s NASCAR Playoffs is all about winners

So, what else does Letarte have to say about the NASCAR Playoffs? As a crew chief and now TV broadcaster, he is constantly thinking about the sport. He is a former competitor, he puts himself in the shoes of those still on the pit box every week he covers a race.

This is what his format would look like.

“So, here’s mine, I’m going to give you the Steve Letarte playoffs, you ready?” Letarte said to Denny Hamlin. “You win a race you’re in the playoffs. There are no, I don’t care about points, I’m not even going to count them. I’ll count them for the guys who don’t make the playoffs. You win and you’re in. We may have six, we may have sixteen. I’m not even going to set a number, the playoffs are only winners. If you don’t win, I don’t care how many points you score, you go home. Like, thank you. Winning is what matters, that’s what people cheer on, Victory Lane should be the best. So, for 26 weeks you have to win a race.

“Then we run, I could argue the format. Either all of those guys fro 10 weeks or all of those guys with some sort of elimination with the last round being three races. There’s still seeding off race wins and stage wins because once Denny wins the first race of the year I want them thinking, I need to keep winning. So, I would still seed everybody in a bracket, not bracket elimination, but there’s still a first to however many winners we have.”

Letarte wants winning to be the focus. That means race wins and stage wins. The points drivers earn from those two stats will be what ultimately decides the seeds and points advantages for the playoff drivers.

“When we reset, when we leave and enter the playoffs. We say, ‘Hey, Kyle Larson had four wins, they’re worth X, and five stage wins they’re worth X. So, that puts him seed one with 2,050 [hypothetical] points.”

What do you think? Better than the current format or more complicated?