By all accounts, the Coke Zero 400 was a rousing success. A first-time winner with an uncertain future and a return to victory lane with a milestone victory for an iconic racing family checked all the boxes in a last-lap superspeedway classic.
While a couple of cars did go tumbling for the second consecutive weekend, we had a rain-free race that rated a solid 90%+ in Jeff Gluck’s weekly poll. What should have been nothing but positives was somewhat soured by the fallout from the resulting win and implications for the playoffs.
Does the playoff format take away from pivotal moments such as Harrison Burton‘s first career win? This week, Trenton Worsham and Vito Pugliese weigh what’s been said over the last few days in 2-Headed Monster.
Winning is What Matters Most
When Harrison Burton broke through to win his first career Cup race last Saturday night, it was on its face, a very popular win. Not only was it a timely win for a driver who finds himself looking for a new ride in 2025, it was the first win for the Wood Brothers since Ryan Blaney at Pocono seven years ago, and their first win at Daytona since Trevor Bayne’s Daytona 500 upset in 2011.
Shortly thereafter on social media, many started to bemoan that Burton’s win wasn’t such a great thing. After all, he was 34th in points and had thrust himself into the playoffs. For the second time in three weeks, a driver with a season mostly consisting of finishing in the rear of the field was brought into the championship conversation … while many other drivers who had been much more competitive are still on the outside looking in with only one race remaining.
So why does the championship have to cheapen these career-defining moments?
Quite simply, it doesn’t.
There’s a word thrown around a lot in social media in the sports world, particularly in NASCAR with the current win and in points system: deserve.
He don’t DESERVE to be in the playoffs, he hasn’t done nothin’ all year!
That driver doesn’t DESERVE that ride, they’re only there because of daddy’s money!
They DESERVE to have a Cup race at that track!
I’ll say this: if it’s September and your favorite driver is 16th or worse in points, do you feel they DESERVE to be contending for a championship? What has changed so significantly that they’ll go from a few top 10s and a sporadic top five to being a title contender?
What matters is winning races.
Yes, there is a financial component to making the playoffs, and the coverage that comes with it. But if we’re being honest with ourselves (something we actually do deserve — honesty), is there really a laser focus on the bottom four drivers? They’re almost certainly gone in three weeks, so why obsess over being the first to be eliminated?
I have been involved writing for the sport for going on 18 years, and have watched it intently for over 30. While the playoff format offers many angles to write about and is a content machine, it’s something that just doesn’t resonate with me as it did 20 years ago when the Chase format replaced a traditional season-long points battle.
Don’t misinterpret that now; no, I’m not some boomer calling into Sirius declaring I’m not watching anymore. Far from it. I actually LIKE the individual races, putting a premium on who wins and the burgeoning new teams trying to establish themselves as weekly contenders. There’s no reason why a first win — let alone a win at The World Center of Racing, the most important track on our schedule, shouldn’t overshadow qualifying for the playoffs.
Five days later, I think the tide is actually starting to turn. People are talking about the win, and unfortunately for Parker Retzlaff, why he was pushing a different manufacturer, trying to do the unthinkable … win a race for himself and his team. Oh wait, why is Chevrolet upset with him? Because he didn’t lay back and not push Burton’s Ford past Kyle Busch … a Chevrolet driver who’s had a pretty rough year and sits below the playoff cut line. Again, prioritizing a car that has rarely been a threat all year as championship material?
Save it. Enjoy a great win, a father/son moment reminiscent of Ned and Dale Jarrett at Michigan International Speedway in 1991 and spare yourself the pearl-clutching over what might happen in Phoenix over two months from now. – Vito Pugliese
Championship Drivers Shouldn’t Be Ranked Last
It was a wild ending to a wild race when Harrison Burton was able to secure the 100th win for the Wood Brothers this past weekend in Daytona: two guys eager for a win, and a playoff spot, drag-racing down the backstretch as Leigh Diffey was about to call the win for Kyle Busch. We knew that if Busch won, he would be a driver who would deserve to be in the playoffs and keep his 19-year win streak alive.
Then the unthinkable happened.
In his second Cup series start, Parker Retzlaff ran a Richard Childress Racing-prepared car and pushed Burton ahead of the No. 8 RCR Chevrolet to clear him and win the race. Busch said post-race that he did everything he could but wreck Burton for the win. Retzlaff said he was pushing the No. 21 Ford in hopes of clearing the cars on the bottom to make a run for the win himself. It did not work that way, and just like that, the driver 34th in full-time Cup driver points standings was in the playoffs.
Like many fans, mixed emotions were felt about this. Surely it was great seeing a young driver who’s been through hell and back finally win a race — a driver who was fired, and will be replaced by Josh Berry in 2025, getting a win. His father, Jeff Burton, was in the NBC booth as Diffey made his “Jeff, your little boy has done it” call — a call that will be remembered well beyond this season. The Wood Brothers getting their 100th win was a popular win for the sport, except when you remember that now this driver is in the playoffs and will “race for a championship.”
This is the drawback of the format, that anyone at any moment can win a race before the playoffs and lock themselves in even if they have a borderline 0% chance of winning a championship. While technically fair within the rules, the rules are an issue. The 32nd-ranked team in the NFL will not make the playoffs or even win the Super Bowl that year … even with a couple of wins.
We all know that Burton will almost surely not win the championship, let alone get far. The ONLY way that would happen is if the alliance with Penske affords them top-tier equipment to have solid runs and survive the misfortune of others who would be picked to go the distance. Oh, and maybe win Talladega, which is also a crap-shoot race in the playoffs.
The drivers on the outside looking in and on the bubble such as Busch, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain would all fare better and go further in the playoffs than Burton would.
To fix this, an idea to reward winners, but also consistency, would be to put a winner into the top 16, but they’d have to stay there or could fall out if a non-winner is having a better season points-wise. Winning again would put them back into the top 16 alongside the other multiple winners, but they again could also fall out.
Just imagine if back in 2001, we had the playoffs and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was last in points and having a bad year. He gets that emotional win that July night at Daytona with Michael Waltrip behind him. Everyone was happy and emotional — it was a win the sport needed.
But then you realize that this guy will race for a title despite being horrible all season, in this scenario. Granted, the fans would probably not care because of who he is, but it takes away those beautiful moments. It can’t just be something magical and present; that dark cloud of the playoffs and how a moment affects that will always taint it for decades to come to any underdog that runs full-time.
Retzlaff winning Daytona last weekend would have been a massive moment for the young driver, but it would not have affected anything and therefore be more embraced.
Burton did fairly get into the playoffs under the rules set before us, but we can’t act like this 34th-place-now-playoff-bound driver in this format should be celebrated, even though the win was one of the more wholesome ones of the season. –Trenton Worsham
Vito is one of the longest-tenured writers at Frontstretch, joining the staff in 2007. With his column Voice of Vito (monthly, Fridays) he’s a contributor to several other outlets, including Athlon Sports and Popular Speed in addition to making radio appearances. He forever has a soft-spot in his heart for old Mopars and presumably oil-soaked cardboard in his garage.
Harrison won Daytona but managed to stay last in points.
Priceless!