NASCAR's Mike Forde defends impact of current playoff format on quality of Las Vegas race

At this time of the NASCAR season, the focus is on the playoffs and the eight drivers remaining in the hunt for a championship. The drama of the playoff format was on full display in Sunday’s Round of 8 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde said Monday.

You had a Denny Hamlin victory, No. 60 of his Cup Series career. Beyond Hamlin, you saw William Byron in disbelief after he crashed into Ty Dillon while running second late in Stage 3. Storylines were plentiful at Las Vegas, Forde said.

“I think you look at the storylines of the playoffs,” Forde said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. “When you’re talking about formats, I think you have to admit this playoff format has increased storylines, increased drama, increased pressure, and like Byron was almost in tears and you have Denny doing Denny things. … He always seems to step up when the chips are stacked against him.

“Denny winning his 60th the way he did, great finish, the restarts were awesome. I think it was a very good race. It wasn’t Kansas good, but I thought it was very good.”

NASCAR playoff format going away in 2026?

Talk of the playoff format and whether that will look different next year has dominated discussion off the racetrack. NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell said in an interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. that the sanctioning body will not announce any potential changes to the playoff format before the end of the 2025 season.

“We got rules in place for this year,” O’Donnell said. “What I don’t want to do is take away from whoever wins the championship this year. Those were the rules. Everybody knew them. Let’s go race, and whoever wins that championship, I’m going to stand behind that driver and team and say that’s our champion.”

Joey Logano, a three-time champion under the current format, is a fan of NASCAR having a postseason. He talked up the playoffs in his post-race interview after the Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte ROVAL. The word Logano kept going to? Drama.

“The playoffs create drama,” Logano said. “It creates storylines. It creates awesome moments like that. I don’t understand what people don’t like about it. I really don’t get it. And if you’re one of those people who say the regular season doesn’t matter, playoff points don’t matter — one point would have been the difference there. I preach that all the time. I’m not just saying that because it works for us. I’m saying it because it’s true. Everyone likes to look at it in other ways, but like I said, one point was the different there.

“If you don’t have cutoff races and things like that, what are you even talking about today? How Shane [van Gisbergen] waxed everyone’s butt? That’s what you want? I’m just saying, this playoff format is wicked.”