NASCAR: Why fans have no legitimate gripe about the playoffs

Every season, NASCAR fans complain about the current playoff format and the fact that playoffs were introduced ahead of the 2004 season. But with all things considered, these fans have no legitimate gripe.

After the 2003 NASCAR Cup Series season, NASCAR introduced playoffs to the sport. From the 2004 season through the 2013 season, the playoff format remained nearly the same, although there were some tweaks made ahead of the 2007 season and ahead of the 2011 season.

Ahead of the 2014 season, however, major changes were made, as the playoffs became round-based like playoffs in other sports such as Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League.

Under the current format, which is set to enter its sixth season this year, 16 drivers qualify for the playoffs, which contain four rounds: the round of 16, the round of 12, the round of 8 and the Championship 4. Drivers can automatically qualify for the playoffs by winning a race in the regular season. The remaining playoff spots are filled by the point standings.

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If a driver wins a race in any one of the first three rounds and that driver is still alive in the championship hunt at the time of his or her victory, he or she automatically advances to the next round.

The highest finisher of the four Championship 4 drivers in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway is crowned champion.

That said, this champion has been the season finale winner in each of the five seasons during which the current playoff format has been used, so it is pretty much necessary to win the race to win the championship.

However, the playoffs have been a hot topic since their introduction since they were introduced ahead of the 2004 season, and the modern playoff format is one that fans particularly like to complain about.

Whether or not the current playoff format could use some tweaks is a whole new debate that this article will not go into. This article is simply about why fans have absolutely no legitimate gripes about the playoffs at all.

What, exactly, do fans complain about?

Fans don’t like the fact that drivers can win 35 of the 36 races on the schedule and finish in fourth place in the championship standings. They don’t like the fact that drivers can finish in second place in all 26 of the regular season’s races and then win all 10 of the season’s playoff races and finish in 17th place in the championship standings.

They don’t like the fact that a driver can finish in 30th place in the regular season point standings and, because of a regular season victory, can work his or her way to the Championship 4 and win the championship.

These complaints are understandable.

Yet these complaints were on full display when Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch both won eight races throughout the 2018 season, while Joey Logano, who won one regular season race, one round of 8 race and the season finale, won the championship. While Logano did not win nearly as many races as Harvick or Busch did throughout the 2018 season, none of these complaints about the playoffs are even remotely applicable in this situation.

Simply put, the idea that this playoffs are the only reason why the most frequent race winners in a given season don’t become the champions is absurd.

In the 2003 season, the final season during which playoffs were not used, Matt Kenseth earned one victory and 11 top five finishes. He led 354 of the 10,350 laps that he completed.

Meanwhile, Ryan Newman earned a season-high eight victories, a season-high 17 top five finishes and a season-high 11 pole positions. He led 1,173 of the 9,705 laps that he completed.

In fact, six other drivers, not including Newman, won more races than Kenseth did and led more laps than he did throughout the 2003 season. But it was Kenseth who won the championship. Meanwhile, Newman finished in sixth place in the championship standings.

Let’s reiterate one thing here: There were no playoffs in the 2003 season.

So why did Kenseth with the championship?

Kenseth’s top 10 finish total of 25 was the best among the top 10 finish totals of all drivers in the 2003 season, and his average finish of 10.2 was the best among the average finishes of all drivers in the 2003 season as well.

This completely destroys the narrative that the playoffs have ruined the need to win a lot of races to win the championship.

Since the 2004 season, all 15 championships have been won by drivers who have earned at least three victories throughout their championship seasons. No driver has won the championship having earned just two victories in a season, much less having earned just one victory like Kenseth did in the 2003 season.

Using Logano as an example, the idea that he didn’t “earn” the 2018 championship is absurd. No, he didn’t rack up the highest point total nor the highest victory total throughout the season, but he had a good enough all-around season to work his way through the playoffs and into the Championship 4 to give himself a chance to win the championship in the season finale.

Logano came through in the clutch, as any athlete in any sport should have to in order to become champion, while the other three Championship 4 drivers could not.

He didn’t just “get lucky” because of the playoff format, and his statistics show it. He finished outside of the top 10 in just three of the season’s final 14 races, and he recorded eight top five finishes in the season’s final 13 races, including two victories and three top three finishes in the final four. He was at his best when it counted the most.

But simply because he didn’t lead the sport in points and victories throughout the season, the kicking and screaming has continued ever since Sunday, November 18, 2018 when he took the checkered flag as the newly crowned NASCAR Cup Series season.

So let’s go back to where playoffs don’t exist — let’s go back to a format where a driver who barely records as many top five finishes as another driver does victories finishes five positions ahead of that driver in the championship standings and wins the championship despite the fact that that other driver earned eight times as many victories as the champion.

Right — because that would make TOTAL sense.

At the end of the day, while no playoff format (or lack thereof) is going to suit the desires of everyone, the driver who gets the job done when it matters most is going to be crowned champion. That has been the case, that is the case, and that will continue to be the case; there is no way around it. End of story.

With all things considered, fans have no legitimate gripe with the NASCAR playoffs. Could some tweaks perhaps be made to the current format? I’m sure that everyone has a different opinion on that. But the idea that a world without the NASCAR playoffs would make things so much more fair than they currently are is beyond ridiculous to even suggest.