It has only been a few days since NASCAR Championship Weekend wrapped up at Phoenix Raceway, and there’s still a sour taste in many mouths.
While the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race wrapped up with the deserving champion in Corey Heim, the NASCAR Xfinity Series result left many with a feeling of emptiness after Connor Zilisch‘s dominant rookie season was all for naught when Jesse Love won the race at Phoenix to take the title.
It only got worse in the NASCAR Cup Series race on Nov. 2 when a late caution, pit call and overtime restart cost Denny Hamlin the title on a day where he led 208 laps and did almost everything right.
Kyle Larson took home his second championship of his career after crew chief Cliff Daniels made a bold pit call to give him two tires on the final pit stop, enough to keep him out front of the other Championship 4 drivers to seal the title.
A lot of people took to social media expressing their frustrations about Hamlin’s 20th attempt at winning a championship seemingly being robbed from him.
But why? Larson would have clinched the title in a full-season points format too, which is what many are clamoring for. So why now are they so upset that Larson won it all?
The problem is not the fact that Larson won the title. In fact, this year might’ve been the first time the Cup Series had a Championship 4 where you could make a legitimate argument for anybody to have won a deserving title.
No, the biggest issue with the result of the Cup championship was the fact that Hamlin did everything he was supposed to do.
For months, the whole idea of the championship race was to “reward the driver when the lights were brightest,” as perpetuated by former driver and Chief Hype Officer of NASCAR, Mamba Smith.
And guess what? On that day in Phoenix, Hamlin performed when the lights were brightest. He went out and did everything he needed to do to win the championship.
And with all the storylines surrounding him — 20 years of trying to win one, most successful driver without a title, his ailing father — people who even despised driver No. 11 found themselves cheering for him.
For once in 11 years, people bought into the playoff format that is often maligned.
And then the caution, which was the fault of nobody; those things happen. Then the pit stop — again nobody’s fault; it was a gamble that didn’t pay off. Then overtime, another gimmick that might need some reconsideration for races like crown jewels and the title race.
And the result only further cemented the flaws in the format.
In a system that was supposed to reward the driver who performed the best when the lights were brightest, Hamlin did just that, and he still walked away without a championship.
So don’t get it twisted. Larson is more than a deserving champion because he would’ve won it in points as well. And again, any of the four drivers had a great case for why they could be a deserving champion.
The problem was never with Larson hoisting the cup.
It was how we got to that point, with a flawed format that was supposed to reward the best driver at Phoenix.
And the best driver at Phoenix still didn’t win it all.
Hopefully whatever format NASCAR comes up with for next season isn’t as convoluted and luck-based as this, or else it’s risking a mass exodus of longtime fans who are just flat out tired of it.
Well said. I absolutely agree, across the board. Barring major changes to the points system, I’m out, after 40+ years of watching nearly every race.
For that matter, even if they fix the method of determining a champion, barring removal of cautions at the end of stages, I’ll probably just watch the ends of races, because they make the brunt of the race mostly pointless.
If you think they are going to be switching to a full season points system, sadly you will probably be disappointed (as much as that is my preference as well). I bet my next paycheck that they will try to make everyone happy and strike a balance between a full season format and a playoff. So I’m thinking a 3-3-4 playoff round format or something similar will be the new way to determine a champion starting next season.
I completely agree with you. To scrap the playoffs entirely would be an admission of failure, and admitting failure is not a NASCAR strong suit. The 3-3-4 you describe might be enough to get me to watch a little. At least it wouldn’t be totally random in crowning a champion.
Still, if cautions for stages remain, I will be skipping the majority of each race. They make nearly everything other than crashes in the first two stages irrelevant, and crashes aren’t what draws me to auto racing. I’ll watch some of stage three, and otherwise use my personal time elsewhere.
A lot of drivers have run ‘perfect’ races and gotten bit at the end. That’s racing. Honestly, it was only a matter of time before this happened in the championship race. A late caution that shakes everything up. A fluky finish. What if Ryan Newman, without a regular season win, had beaten Kevin Harvick in the very first playoff, which he easily could have? Everyone would have immediately questioned this format, not just the traditionalists. But, for several years, it worked out with no surprises. Then, in recent years, more underdogs won, and everyone started scrutinizing the format. I adjusted to the playoff format, but it seems to have run it’s course with too many surprise endings and lots of complaining when your driver didn’t win. I said this before: Good luck NASCAR trying to make it better.
Uh, the champion in anything is decided by whatever the heck the rules say it is. I personally hate the whole Playoffs crap, but that’s how the game is played. Devoting too much time to the championship and not enough to the individual races is part of the poor marketing of the sport. Each event needs to be special.
Nascar needs to stop reacting to fan input. If Nascar doesn’t trust itself to set a direction, define itself, and react to data to course correct, then the wrong people are running the organization.
And if Nascar wants driver and owner input, set up a private forum with them as a whole, not as individuals.
One crew chief was sure enough that his driver could win with only two tires. The other one wasn’t. Nuff said.
This goes back to the Gordon/Evernham days. How many races did they win by taking two tires (and track position) while the field took 4? Maybe Hendrick has a little of that “tire softening agent” left and used some of it to get Larson the Championship! lol
Sorry that Hamlins father is sick. I’m still not sorry he didn’t win the crapshoot. Larson and Byron didnt need to apologize. They didn’t wreck him it’s the breaks in racing
Agree. Everyone has problems within their lives, and measuring them, or thinking people should apologize for doing their jobs is illogical.