Ryan Blaney has dipped his racing shoes into the championship format debate, one that has taken over social media this week. He has specifically pushed back against claims that the current title holders were less deserving than their predecessors who raced in different eras.
The 2023 Cup Series champion made these comments during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Wednesday morning. As he explained, the drivers and teams who won the Cup Series championships in the playoff era rose to the occasion when it mattered most. They took care of business.
"What kind of bugs me a little bit is the people that are so diehard on, like, 'If you won a championship in this format that we have now, oh, it's a Micky Mouse championship and it doesn't matter. It doesn't count,'" Blaney said.
"It's like, man, everyone has the same opportunity as the guy who won it. This isn't the full season points. Like everyone always talks about like, 'Oh, this guy, he would have won the full season points.' Like, well, that's great. But we haven't used that format in 20 years."
Blaney is one of the drivers who won a Cup Series title in the elimination format. He didn't dominate throughout the year as Kyle Larson did in 2021, but he and the No. 12 team took care of business at pivotal parts of the season.
The team ran consistently during the regular season and locked up a spot in the playoffs with a Coca-Cola 600 win. They then survived the first round on points before advancing through the Round of 12 with a win at Talladega.
A win at Martinsville in the Round of 8 put Blaney into the Championship 4 for the first time, and then he won the title by finishing second overall in the finale at Phoenix. The only driver who finished ahead of Blaney in the race, Ross Chastain, was not part of the championship battle.
"I look at our championship as like, we had a good year and we even had a better playoffs than everybody else," Blaney added. "And we rose to the occasion when we needed to, and we dug in and we were the best car during the playoffs and had some big wins and I was able to get the championship.
"So yeah, I don't know. I mean, everyone can have their opinion. It gets under my skin a little bit when they're like, 'You guys didn't deserve that championship.' It's like, what are you talking about, man? Like we went through the grinder, everyone digs in. And we were resilient when it mattered."
Of course, pushing back against the criticism doesn't mean that Blaney is a diehard fan of the current elimination format.
He noted that he doesn't love the winner-takes-all setup where you just have to win the season finale in Phoenix to win the title. He would certainly like to see some changes and a potential return to an older format that tested drivers' consistency over a longer span.
"Do I have my ideal like championship format? Yeah," Blaney said. "Like my opinion on it, I was a huge fan of the initial Chase. Last 10 weeks of the year, you kind of have somewhat of a reset in points and then you go 10 races and whoever had the best 10 races was going to win the championship."