Kyle Busch has strayed from the NASCAR pack with his feelings on the Chase, with the postseason format being brought back for 2026.

The prevailing sentiment since the announcement is that NASCAR did an unequivocally good thing by ditched the hated playoff system for the ten-race Chase, but Busch has challenged that line of thinking.

Speaking on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Monday morning, the two-time champion pointed out that the Chase was abandoned 'for a reason' in the first place, complaining that one wreck at a superspeedway can be the difference between glory and obscurity.

Busch called back to a year in which he finished fifth in the championship 'just from having a wreck in one race like Talladega', appearing to refer to 2007 (the only year he finished fifth), a year in which Jimmie Johnson finished with 77 points more than Jeff Gordon and nearly 350 more than any other driver. Busch was 430 points behind – comfortably more than he could've accumulated by winning at Talladega instead of wrecking.

It's also worth noting, when reading Busch's comments, that both of his Cup Series titles came in the playoff era, including his first in the very first Championship Race.

Busch: I don't really agree with Chase format

“I thought we got away from it for a reason in the past. So, I’m not real sure why we went back to it. The reasons why we sort of went away from it was obviously Jimmie Johnson’s dominance, number one.

“I feel like number two is there were times where guys like myself, who would have one bad race or two that would then knock them out of the championship. I finished third one year, fifth another year just from having a wreck in one race like Talladega. You can’t make up enough points to get back to the championship.

“I got wrecked at Kansas one year. That put me fifth in the championship.” [Note: this is also the aforementioned 2007 season, with Busch wrecking at Kansas and Talladega in back-to-back weeks. He won one race all year, at Bristol in March]

He continued: “It’s just stuff like that. I don’t really agree with it. But, the racing, the way that it is today and everybody running over everybody all the time, you might see that all 16 of us have a bad race.

“If all of us have a bad race then that could be construed as a throw away and you gotta be good in the other nine. We’ll see how it plays out.”

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