NASCAR: Playoff format worked to perfection once again

While many fans have complained about the way Joey Logano won his first NASCAR Cup Series championship, the playoff format worked to perfection.

The current NASCAR Cup Series playoff format, which is now used in a similar fashion in both the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series, was implemented in the 2014 season and has been used ever since. It has been used in the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series since the 2016 season.

The utilization of this playoff system has drawn the ire of many fans, particularly old school fans, who feel that it does not reward the “best” driver or the “most deserving” driver with the championship once the season comes to an end.

After all, there is no guarantee that the driver who accumulates the most points throughout the 36-race season will earn the championship. In fact, in the last five seasons, only one time has the champion been the driver who scored the most points over the course of the season. Martin Truex Jr. won the 2017 championship after racking up the highest point total throughout the year.

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Team Penske’s Joey Logano, who won this year’s championship, won it despite the fact that he finished the season with the fifth highest point total using the traditional scoring method. This has caused many fans to lash out at NASCAR, just as they have in the past, for awarding the championship to an “undeserving” driver.

However, all this proves is that the playoff format worked to perfection — again.

The Cup Series season is a 36-race season. Using points only with no playoffs, the odds that the championship race ends up meaning anything are slim, and even if it does, the likelihood that anything changes in it is small.

The purpose of NASCAR implementing playoffs to begin with in the 2004 season was to make it more likely that the championship battle comes down to the wire each season. The playoff format that was implemented in the 2014 season guarantees that it will, and it has done so in each of the five seasons during which it has been utilized.

As a result, there is no guarantee that a driver who dominates the season will win the championship. But while this may seem outlandish to many fans, it’s really not. First of all, the concept of the Championship 4 forces drivers, no matter how well they have performed in the regular season or up until that point in the playoffs, to perform well in the clutch.

The emphasis in the current format is certainly on winning both in the regular season and in the playoffs, as there are playoff points rewarded to drivers for winning races throughout the season (five playoff points per race win) and for winning stages (one playoff point per stage win) throughout the season. Playoff points are also awarded to drivers who finish the regular season in the top 10 in the championship standings.

These playoff points are carried through the playoffs by the drivers who advance to each round, as they are added to their point totals once their point totals are reset to start the next round.

This is the case for every round of the playoffs except for the Championship 4, and stage points are not available for the four Championship 4 drivers. As a result, no matter how many wins or playoff points drivers have entering the Championship 4 race, the highest finishing Championship 4 driver in this race is crowned champion.

Is this unfair?

Not at all. In fact, it’s anything but a foreign concept, and it works perfectly, as demonstrated once again this season. Wins matter in the regular season, and they matter more in the playoffs since they automatically advance drivers into the next round.

This is the case in any sport. Wins in the regular season help teams advance to the playoffs, and the teams that win the most are rewarded with homefield advantage. In the NFL, some of them are awarded with first-round byes. But once the championship rolls around, in the Super Bowl especially, everything resets and teams put it all on the line.

The 2007 New England Patriots went 16-0 and lost the Super Bowl to the 10-6 New York Giants. The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors went 73-9 and lost the NBA Finals to the 57-25 Cleveland Cavaliers. And guess what? The Giants, not the Patriots, and the Cavaliers, not the Warriors, are the true champions, and there is nothing illegitimate about it.

Why is this the case?

This is the case because of the fact that the playoff formats in these sports force teams to perform well in the clutch. They reward them for pre-championship success to an extend, but they also ensure that to win the championship, teams perform at the highest levels when it matters the most, as they should have to.

Should this really be the case in NASCAR?

At the end of the day, this is a whole separate topic. Some fans prefer no playoffs, some fans prefer the pre-2014 playoff format, and some fans prefer this playoff format. The fact is, this format has proven to work in NASCAR over the course of the five seasons during which it has been utilized.

NASCAR drivers know that building up wins and playoff points throughout the season gives them a better chance to reach the Championship 4. In other words, they know that more wins and playoff points put them in a position to have a better chance to have a chance to compete for the championship when the Championship 4 rolls around.

But they also know that once the Championship 4 begins, they need to perform at the highest level in it to be crowned champion. Their regular season and playoff success allowed them to get there, but they can’t fade away in the season finale and expect to win the championship, as once the Championship 4 rolls around, that success all gets thrown out the window.

Logano won this year’s championship with just three victories throughout the 36-race season. Meanwhile, the three other Championship 4 drivers racked up a total of 20 victories throughout the season. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch each earned eight while Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. earned four.

However, what Logano accomplished throughout the regular season and when he accomplished it earned him the opportunity to compete for the championship in the Championship 4. He did exactly what he needed to do to get to that point.

While Logano did not have as much success as Harvick, Busch and Truex Jr. in the season’s first 35 races, it was he who rose to the occasion in the Championship 4 and won the race to secure the 2018 championship while the three drivers who became known as the “Big Three” throughout the season were left scratching their heads after failing to perform at a high level when it mattered the most.

While Logano has been deemed an “illegitimate champion” by fans who can’t accept the fact that everyone races under the exact same format and adheres to the exact same rules, the fact is, there are no “illegitimate champions”; just regular season pretenders and true championship contenders.

This season, Logano was the latter, just as every champion is under this playoff format. In fact, Harvick, Busch and Truex Jr. have all been in Logano’s boat before. They simply couldn’t get the job done in 2018.

The bottom line is that the playoff format did exactly what it was supposed to do this season, just as it has in each season since it was introduced in the 2014 season, and every single driver in the NASCAR Cup Series field enters each season knowing exactly what that is.

They know exactly what they need to do to put themselves in a position to have a chance to win the championship, and they know exactly what they need to do to win it. Like it or not, this playoff system does its job.