Joey Logano has advanced to the Championship 4 yet again. Thus far in the 2024 season, he has six top-five finishes — half of which are wins — and only 11 top 10s in 32 races. Furthermore, he advanced to the Round of 8 only after Alex Bowman was disqualified for a post-race failure in tech inspection.
Logano will now compete for the NASCAR Cup Series championship. Yet, statistically, he arguably is not the most deserving. So, does this playoff format still hold legitimacy, or are some changes in order? Mark Kristl and Wyatt Watson debate that in this week’s 2-Headed Monster.
Playing the Game by the Current Rules
First, whether we like it or not, this is the way NASCAR determines its champions — via a playoff system with a winner-take-all “Game 7” race. Cue the old “crying over spilled milk” phrase.
I’ve watched racing when there were no playoffs, and now with the different playoff formats. The playoffs add hype to many racetracks. Otherwise, would anyone pay attention to the fall race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, or most of the fall races, when NASCAR competes on Sundays alongside the NFL?
Logano punched his ticket to the Championship 4 thanks to his win at Las Vegas. Statistics be damned, he’s made it there when others such as former champions Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski were unable to do so. You don’t just luck your way into the championship event in any sport.
Logano won thanks to a fuel strategy. Everyone else had the same opportunity to do so. Dominant driver Christopher Bell opted not to do so and wound up one spot short of victory lane. Does it sting for Bell? Yes. Would he have won if he chose the same strategy as Logano? Maybe; we’ll never know.
Not every sport crowns its champion in a winner-take-all event. Some sports, like the MLB, have best-of-seven series. Yet the World Series champion often does not have the best regular-season record. As a Chicago Cubs fan, I remember when the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series despite an 83-78 regular season record. Five games over 0.500 throughout the season only to ride an incredible hot streak to winning it all — in five games, to boot.
Was the Cardinals’ championship legitimate? Yes.
How about in sports with a single winner-take-all event, such as the NFL? David Tyree of the New York Giants made an amazing catch to prevent the New England Patriots from a complete perfect season as they lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl.
Was the Giants’ Super Bowl victory deemed less legitimate because they won thanks to a spectacular play? No. It’s arguably one of the greatest Super Bowls.
Moving on from comparing the NASCAR championship to stick-and-ball sports, though.
There are a multitude of ways to determine a champion in racing. There are countless point systems used throughout the country by racetracks and series.
The ARCA Menards Series uses a season-long points format to determine its champion. This year, its champion Andres Perez went winless. Does that make his championship illegitimate? No, but it does not look good for the series either. Nevertheless, Perez will forever be the 2024 series champion.
If NASCAR used the ARCA points system, would we have a champion who would be the best? The definition of “best” in racing is debatable, too. Was the driver the best because they won the most races? Or were they the best because they were the most consistent? The winningest driver may not be the most consistent. Points racing is different than racing for victory.
Under its current format, NASCAR has awarded titles to one winless driver: Matt Crafton in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2019.
Last year’s Trucks champion Ben Rhodes was not even the fastest Championship 4 driver in the finale at Phoenix Raceway. He was the one who best withstood the chaos.
NASCAR wants to prioritize winning while also rewarding points racing. In each Cup playoff round, at least one driver advances on points. The playoff fields are comprised of the winning drivers and then the best finishing drivers on points.
The championship race does not require a Championship 4 driver to win the race. Just finish the best of the four. Frankly, that’s incredibly simple.
NASCAR champions are the ones who succeed in the regular season to make the playoffs, then the ones who run the table all the way to capturing the title at Phoenix Raceway.
To conclude, the champions are legitimate. Rhodes took home the ’23 Truck championship trophy. All his competitors wish they could’ve done likewise. And nobody claimed he won it illegitimately. – Mark Kristl
The Points System Needs a Major Tweak — Fast
Joey Logano has once again busted the playoff format that has occasionally crowned illegitimate champions in the past, winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway just as he did two years ago.
This playoff format that has challenged the legitimacy of NASCAR’s way of crowning championships in its top three series for far too long, and Logano is on his way to ultimately busting and exposing the system for what is truly is: a gimmick.
The nature of the playoff system has taken away from amazing moments in NASCAR, such as Harrison Burton‘s win at Daytona International Speedway in the summer and Kevin Harvick‘s nine-win season in 2020. The latter was rewarded with a Round of 8 exit.
Additionally, go back to last season where Ryan Blaney, who struggled all summer to get a finish better than ninth, turned up the heat at Talladega Superspeedway, won at Martinsville and stole the title away, all in part to a one-race winner-take-all.
One race, especially a not-so-exciting race at Phoenix Raceway, shouldn’t be the decider for a championship. Some form of consistency needs to be rewarded, and the three-race elimination rounds don’t cut it either.
So, what would work? Giving the points system that worked at the height of NASCAR’s popularity a look should be the first thing.
Constantly, the fan base argues over if the Winston Cup, or the long-gone and much-lamented Latford System (still recognized as the gold standard for crowning a champion across three decades of racing), rewarded the most consistent team and best driver more times than not.
The playoff system feels like, as Eric Estepp put it in his Out of the Groove episode earlier this week, “NCAA Basketball March Madness on Wheels” — and I have to agree almost 100%.
While drivers have three races to settle it out on track for the first nine events of the playoffs, the last race seems just like the championship game — or in this case, race.
There’s just one problem: NASCAR isn’t NCAA Basketball. It’s NASCAR. It shouldn’t have to come down to the final race.
At least in the original Chase for the Cup, 10 drivers had 10 races to settle the title. It still gave the races meaning and allowed enough time for the true contenders to flourish. This playoff format doesn’t allow this. It punishes the slightest error, whether caused by the playoff drivers or not.
There’s only two places NASCAR can go: either go back to what worked or go full-send on the gimmick train. Make the championship race Talladega. That way, at least we can have a show to see who wins whatever the sport calls a champion. – Wyatt Watson
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on X @WyattWRacing