As often happens in the NASCAR world, a new year brings changes and it doesn’t take long for those announcements to come flying out of the assorted marketing departments.
This week’s flurry of news began with Steve Phelps’ announcement that he’d be leaving his role as NASCAR commissioner by the end of January.
Advertisement
A day or two later, we learned seven-time champ Jimmie Johnson will use the relatively new “exemption” to guarantee himself a starting spot in the 2026 Daytona 500.
If Kyle Larson repeats as Cup Series champ in 2026, it’ll come through a different playoff format.
And just as we thought we’d quietly glide into weekend mode, we got a few other pieces of news — one of them potentially major, so let’s start there.
NASCAR playoff format changes coming soon
Late last season, NASCAR strongly hinted that a change would be coming to its current playoff format, which includes a season-ending winner-take-all among four drivers still racing for a championship.
The new format will be announced Monday afternoon, we’re now told. And you can watch.
Advertisement
The announcement will be aired on NASCAR.com, NASCAR YouTube and The NASCAR Channel.
Some have lobbied for the “old way” — as in pre-2004 — of establishing a champ, which was through a season-long gathering of points, without any form of late-season playoffs.
That’s unlikely, since it invites the real possibility of entering the final race (or two) with the championship already clinched. That might’ve worked OK in the old days, but not so much with modern networks shelling out billions for coverage and, you have to assume, doing so with hopes of season-ending drama.
Front Row spending some of that NASCAR lawsuit money
Remember the NASCAR antitrust trial? Of course you do — the gavel is practically still echoing in your ears.
Advertisement
The two plaintiff teams reportedly recouped some lost revenue in the settlement and all teams will presumably be seeing more money coming their way either directly or indirectly going forward.
Well, one of those plaintiff teams — Front Row Motorsports — appears ready to up its spending in conjunction with that. The team announced some personnel moves this week, and those moves including a little bit of shuffling, but also some new positions.
The team now has an overall competition director, which is a fairly common position with Cup Series teams. It’ll be Drew Blickensderfer, who previously was crew chief for the team’s No. 4 car driven by Noah Gragson. Grant Hutchens will now crew-chief Gragson’s car after being hired away from Team Penske.
Front Row also now has an aerodynamics manager — Jonathan DeHart, who was previously the “body production manager” at Hendrick Motorsports and an engineer for General Motors’ IndyCar efforts.
Brad Keselowski’s gas-pedal leg needs more healing before Daytona 500
We end the roundup in the orthopedic clinic, where Brad Keselowski is recovering from breaking his right femur (that’s the thigh bone, by the way).
Advertisement
The preseason Clash is still three-plus weeks away (Feb. 1), but Kez has already announced he won’t be racing that day at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.
He’ll be replaced by veteran Corey LaJoie in the No. 6 Ford of RFK Racing.
Kez says he broke the leg during a mid-December ski trip to Boone in upstate North Carolina. For better or worse, there’s nothing thrilling about this skiing injury. It actually happened, Kez says, when he was dropping off his daughter for ski lessons.
He got out of his car, slipped, and next thing he knew, he was facing many weeks of injury rehab. And yes, he says he’ll definitely be back in time for the official season-opener, the Feb. 15 Daytona 500.
Advertisement
— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR playoff format changing, Brad Keselowski injury, and other news
