For those who do not know what happened, yesterday was the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, which was one of the most blatantly corrupt races I've ever seen, but to give a TL;DR of the situation:
Chevrolet told several of the teams that drive its cars to make a blockade in order to guarantee that at least one of its drivers, this time William Byron, would be able to make the Championship 4 race happening this Sunday. This blatant collusion was recorded on several drivers' radios being communicated by their spotters and crew chiefs, which is bringing into question the validity of the current 'playoff' format.
It sucks, and god I wish we went back to the full season format, or at max, the 10 race Chase, because the 'playoffs' don't even boost ratings, which I'd imagine is NASCAR's goal.
NASCAR is just gone at this point.
Between Noah Gragson getting fired for liking a meme, the gay pride 48 car, and the Bubba Wallace worship it's been culturally captured.
The blatant race manipulation is nothing new though. Ever since the gimmicky playoff format there have been phantom debris cautions and drivers intentionally sandbagging or spinning out.
Byron is my favorite driver (love watching /r/nascar melt down when he wins) and I'm not even happy with the results. I probably won't even watch the championship race.
The drivers hate the playoff format, the owners hate it and the fans hate it, it's literally just the people that run NASCAR that like it, and the only thing that I think will change things is MJ and Denny Hamlin's lawsuit.
I hope MJ, Front Row, and Denny are able to win that lawsuit.
It could be what NASCAR needs to become even better and more stable in the long term.