"Damn cover the race a little bit": Mark Martin blasts NASCAR Xfinity broadcast for playoffs and championship focus

Mark Martin fired shots at CW for its coverage of Saturday’s (August 2) Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway. According to the NASCAR veteran, the broadcast giant focused more on the playoffs and championship aspects of the race rather than the race itself.

Martin has had a lot of success in the Xfinity Series, which was known as the Busch Series back in the day. From his first race in 1982 to his last race in the series in 2012, the Batesville, Arkansas native won 49 races, besides logging 152 top-10s and 30 poles. He doesn’t race anymore but cares a lot about racing, and that’s not just Cup racing.

So, reflecting on CW’s coverage of the HyVee Perks 250 at Iowa, Mark Martin posted on X:

“Every other sentence on today’s broadcast has been Playoff and championship. Damn cover the race a little bit. We are watching a race too.”

It looks like Martin misses the good old days. However, things are different in the NextGen era, with the most focus on the postseason. The elimination-style playoffs, divided into two rounds of three races each, besides the Championship race at Phoenix, are the standard now.

Haas Factory Racing driver Sam Mayer won Saturday’s race, marking his maiden win of the season and booking an automatic playoff berth. Winding up the top five were Jesse Love, Ross Chastain, Connor Zilisch, and Harrison Burton. Next for the drivers is the Mission 200 at Watkins Glen, which is scheduled for August 9.

JR Motorsports driver Connor Zilisch is the defending winner of the event. He is the winningest driver of 2025, with five victories already to his name. Fans can watch him contend for his sixth only on CW, 3 p.m. ET onwards.

Mark Martin adds to Denny Hamlin’s playoff demands

Mark Martin isn’t against Denny Hamlin’s demands for a three-race championship round instead of a one-race-decides-it-all kind of system. However, if NASCAR were to ever shake up things, Martin said that the fans wouldn’t be happy with just three races.

As things stand, the winner of the championship race gets all the glory. So, putting a few more races into the mix would take away the extra emphasis on the final race of the season.

“The guys in the sport would like to see a sample size of maybe three races,” Mark Martin said in a statement. “That might make Denny Hamlin feel better about a championship, about it not being a one-race lucky deal or something, but it ain't gonna move the needle for the fans.”

“How's that going to change how the fans feel about it? So you went to three races. 10 is the least amount that I would do if I was going to compromise,” he added.

That said, NASCAR isn’t going to change its current playoff format anytime soon. Steve O’Donnell confirmed this in January before the 2025 season kicked off.