NASCAR Playoffs: Pros and Cons

Con – The best driver doesn’t always win the championship

The one plus to predictability is that you can be fairly certain that the best driver or team will end up as the winner in whatever sport you are talking about, and rightfully so; the champion of a sport should typically be the best team or driver in that sport. However, because the NASCAR playoffs make things unpredictable, the perceived best or rightful champion doesn’t always end up as the champion.

While unpredictability is listed as a pro in this article, this con is the one downside of that unpredictability. As referenced in the slide about unpredictability being a pro that the playoffs provide, the downside is that the champion doesn’t always end up being the best driver. After all, in eight of the 13 seasons during which the playoffs have been used in the Cup Series, someone other than the driver who accumulated the most points from the season’s beginning to its end won the championship.

Plus, if a driver is truly dominant throughout the whole season but has a bad race or two in the playoffs, should they really be eliminated because of it while drivers who haven’t had the greatest of seasons but get a decent result or two in the playoffs move on to the next round?

Is it really appropriate to give all of the playoff drivers a near-equal chance at winning the championship when the playoffs start after one driver has dominated the entire regular season, which takes up most of the sport’s schedule?

Sure, that’s how basketball, baseball, football and hockey work. But NASCAR racing is nothing like any of those sports, and it should never be compared to those sports whether you enjoy those sports or you don’t.