The winning purse for the upcoming race at Phoenix Raceway is currently being prepared, but there is a massive difference in the reported purse between the Cup and NOAP Series. Reason? NASCAR has been quite secretive about its purse ever since the Charter System was introduced. While the sport has its reasons, veteran Mark Martin is not satisfied with scratching the surface and wants the deeper answers.

Mark Martin questions NASCAR’s discrepancy

Martin comes from the early era of racing, when NASCAR was more transparent with the teams and especially the fans. However, ever since the purse was stopped from being revealed to the public, there have been some growing concerns. The Charter system in itself has been criticized multiple times, with 23XI Racing even filing a lawsuit regarding the same.

But there seems to be more beneath the sport, not revealing the exact purse, like Martin wrote on X:

“We the fans would love to know how these purse $ are distributed like we used to. But I guess NASCAR and the teams would rather keep that concealed,” he wrote.

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What he said seems justifiable. As per insider Bob Pockrass, the Cup purse is set at $11,233,037. Meanwhile, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drops to $1,653,590. This seems like a massive drop, and no clear reason is specified. Moreover, the exact prize that the race winner will take is also not revealed. These massive figures only reveal a lump sum that includes charter payouts, contingencies, and year-end fund contributions.

These calculations were also questioned when Daytona 500 winner, Tyler Reddick, only got a very small percentage of the winner’s purse. As per sources, this year’s Great American Race had a whopping purse of $31,045,575. However, after all the taxes he had to pay, Reddick was reported to only carry home around $936,950, roughly 58% of the actual purse.

This sounds like a joke; however, NASCAR has been operating this way for a decade now. The rules were changed back in 2016, and the fans have not known the exact winner’s purse since then. At the end of the day, however, it feels only right that a veteran like Mark Martin is questioning the authorities, albeit with no hopes of an actual, straightforward reply. The fans also seem to support him, but it’s NASCAR’s decision.

How NASCAR defended its secrecy regarding the race purse

There were quite a few changes going on in NASCAR a decade ago. Apart from the change in the championship format (introduction of the elimination-style playoffs), there was also the introduction of the Charter System. As per this, the chartered teams were guaranteed to run every single race, with a total of 36 charters. The remaining cars had to qualify for every single race.

With the introduction of these, NASCAR seemed to be going more secretive about its business dealings, including the purse.

“It’s a new foundation and a new era,” Brent Dewar, the COO at the time, said. “We’ve changed a lot of things from that old model to this model. That’s one of the things that was from a different time and place.”

Ten years later, the decision still does not sit well with the fans. And neither with the veteran drivers, as Mark Martin’s statement clearly proves. As of now, one of the major issues the teams had has been resolved. The Charters are made evergreen as a result of the lawsuit’s settlement. Still, there are quite a few changes yet to come to make the sport more transparent.