Stop me if you've heard this one about a thousand times per week for the last 12 years: NASCAR fans are fed up with the modern Cup Series playoff format.
Of course, those complaints are amplified whenever a driver from well below the top 16 in the point standings wins to lock himself into the 16-driver postseason field.
Last year, last-place scorer Harrison Burton won the penultimate race of the regular season at Daytona International Speedway, and that was enough to lock him into the postseason above almost 20 other drivers who beat him (comfortably) in the point standings.
Then a few weekends ago, Trackhouse Racing rookie Shane van Gisbergen, who has been arguably weaker on ovals this year than Burton was last year, entered the road course race in Mexico in 33rd place in the point standings. He managed to win, and even though he still only sits 31st in points, his playoff spot has presumably been secured as well.
There have been calls over the years for NASCAR to either go back to the pre-2014 playoff format, which was simply a 10-race format that did not involve a round-by-round knockout setup, and there have been other calls for NASCAR to go back to a simple 36-race championship format, with no playoffs whatsoever to crown a champion.
Of course, when such suggestions are made, there are always disagreements over how much wins should actually matter. Should a win be more beneficial than a DNF is harmful, thus penalizing drivers for "consistency" when that consistency doesn't involve winning? And can such changes be made in a manner that fairly reduces how much wins mean now?
Regardless, calls for any such changes are ignoring one key element that, in the grand scheme of things, even makes a pure points format more of a gimmick than any playoff format could be, believe it or not.
And that element is stage racing.
Since 2017, NASCAR has split each race into three stages (four for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway) and awarded points to the top 10 drivers at the end of the non-race-ending stages.
In a regular race, it is theoretically possible for the race winner to end up 11th in total points scored for that race, and it is also possible for the driver who finishes in 16th place to lead all drivers in points scored.
So fans can complain all they want about the modern format and continue to call for a reversion to the season-long championship format. But believe me: if NASCAR were to revert to that format, and stage points end up playing a role in the championship, the complaints would be louder than ever.
Fans can deny it now, but generally speaking, NASCAR fans are known to find things to complain about, and this would be even lower-hanging fruit than the playoff format.
Can you imagine if running eighth on some random lap in a mid-summer race instead of 11th or something ends up making a difference in who is crowned champion?
There would still be claims of "fake champion" (like we get every year as it is) if the champion is a driver who only scored the most total points because of stage points.
You simply cannot go back to the 2003 championship format as long as stage racing exists, regardless of the overall points structure.
Stage racing is, and always has been, a bigger gimmick than even the playoff format when it comes to NASCAR. At the end of the day, at least the playoffs do reward winning. When it comes to stage racing, points are paid out regardless of the end result, and that problem would only be amplified if the playoffs are scrapped.