NASCAR: 3 crazy scenarios that totally expose the playoff format

3. 34th place?

Prior to 2023, because of the fact that a driver who wins a regular season race only needed to finish in the top 30 in the regular season standings in order for his win to lock him into the playoffs, the 30th place driver could make a championship run.

Starting in 2023, even the top 30 requirement was completely scrapped.

This is something that Wood Brothers Racing's Harrison Burton has certainly taken advantage of, with his Daytona International Speedway victory locking him into the postseason and thus making him championship eligible from all the way down in 34th place, last among full-time drivers.

Imagine that happening: a driver with an average finish of something in the vicinity of 30th place (Burton's is 25.7) winning the championship while a driver with 10 wins, nothing lower than a second place finish, and an average finish of 1.72 finishes in 17th in the standings. Fun stuff.

With these scenarios in mind, does your opinion of the NASCAR playoff format change? In one way, it shouldn't negatively impact it, as there is pretty much a 0.000001% chance that any one of them happens, if even that.

But in another way, it shouldn't positively impact it either, as the fact is that this format opens itself up to these scenarios playing out, even if the most extreme scenarios on the scale of possibilities don't come to fruition.