Bob Pockrass
FOX NASCAR Insider
As Joey Logano continues to have fun his 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship, the query stays: Should NASCAR revamp, or at the least modify, its playoff format?
Logano was the primary driver to complete fifteenth or worse within the common season to achieve Championship 4 not to mention win the title. His championship generated dialogue about whether or not the common season ought to imply extra.
With the Next Gen automobile seeking to have extra parity, much more emphasis must be positioned on wins in the course of the 26-race common season and/or 10-race playoffs which can be divided into three three-race rounds to supply 4. drivers eligible for the title on the finish of the season.
“The message we’re attempting to ship is that the common season issues extra,” stated workforce proprietor and driver Denny Hamlin. “Those 26 races are proving to not be that necessary to successful a championship, and that is not one thing you need.
“My message to NASCAR can be: ‘Make the common season value extra.’ … Because proper now, for the final three years, you’d say the champion hasn’t needed to do a lot within the common season, and that is most likely not good.”
Logano received one sport within the common season however then received three within the playoffs. Two years in the past, once they received the title, they completed second within the common season with two wins however then received two extra occasions within the playoffs. Last yr, his Penske teammate Ryan Blaney received as soon as within the common season, however then twice within the playoffs.
The final time a driver with probably the most wins in the course of the common season received the title was in 2021, when Kyle Larson had 5 wins within the common season after which received 5 extra races within the playoffs. That was the earlier era automobile’s final season earlier than NASCAR moved to Next Gen, the place all of the chassis and lots of different components come from a single provider fairly than the groups that construct them.
“The factors format must be mirrored within the wins, and the tiebreaker must be the ultimate race, and it must be that means,” 2012 Cup champion Brad Keselowski stated. “As a competitor and as a fan of the game, I’ve bother understanding how the drivers with probably the most wins normally do not win championships.
“I simply do not suppose it feels proper.”
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In different sports activities, the workforce with probably the most victories doesn’t win the title. But Keselowski stated that contemplating all of the drivers compete in opposition to one another all year long, the comparability is not fairly the identical.
“We’re not the NFL,” Keselowski stated. “We proceed to get caught up in comparisons to different sports activities.”
Keselowski famous that media companions just like the playoff format. The fan base appears to be divided. NASCAR says the playoffs will stay in some type: The playoff format started 20 years in the past after Matt Kenseth clinched the title with only one win and one race remaining within the season, when drivers’ factors earned throughout all the season decided the pattern.
“We will completely see what form the playoffs take within the offseason,” NASCAR chief working officer Steve O’Donnell stated final month in the course of the season-ending race weekend in Phoenix. “You’re all the time studying… You cannot argue with the standard of the video games the playoffs provided.
“You can discuss concerning the format if we do some various things, however we’ll completely persist with the playoffs.”
Blaney stated he would favor two five-race rounds with 16 drivers to open the playoffs after which reduce the quantity to eight drivers for the ultimate spherical. He would give extra factors for wins and thinks that might preserve issues on the level the place they are going to be aggressive all through. He stated groups will all the time adapt to the format.
“I’d prefer to see a gaggle of races to finish the yr the place nobody can run away with them,” Blaney stated. “In three or 5 races, there’ll nonetheless be some good competitors happening.
“I’m not on the forefront of wanting to vary this playoff factor. It is what it’s. I feel possibly there are some modifications they may take into consideration.”
Roger Penske, proprietor of the Logano and Blaney groups, additionally owns the IndyCar Series, which nonetheless bases its champion on factors earned all through all the season. This yr his championship (of 17 races) ended with the final race. Formula 1 enters its season finale, the twenty fourth race of the yr, this weekend with its champion determined in Las Vegas with two races remaining.
Penske famous that Team Penske received 10 of the final 24 occasions of the yr counting the all-star race and Harrison Burton’s win at Daytona for Penske affiliate Wood Brothers Racing.
“We all signed as much as a factors system firstly of the yr, did not we?” Penske stated. “And that is what we function on. We’ve been to locations the place there’s been modifications many alternative occasions.
“We’ll let NASCAR take care of it. If they suppose they want modifications, that is effective. But I assume when somebody says you win three in a row, one thing has to vary.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He spent many years overlaying motorsports, together with greater than 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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