No format can guarantee best driver wins Cup

My best friend in the racing media HATES — his words, his emphasis — NASCAR’s championship-deciding Playoff system. He finds it among the WORST POSSIBLE WAYS — again, his words, his emphasis — to crown Cup Series champions.

This guy’s no looney who rails against everything. He’s covered racing 50-some years and is an extraordinary journalist, among the best. He’s thoughtful, fair-minded, curious, intelligent and puts words together better than anyone I know. He has a gift of making you think about mundane things in another light.

We’ve been pals since the early 1970s. We’ve traveled together, roomed together, dined together and sat together during thousands of interviews in countless media boxes. We’ve supported each other through professional and personal crises and known each’s “significant others.” (We’ve finally gotten that part right).

I respect his judgement so much that if he says the 16-driver, 10-race, four-round elimination format is bad, then maybe it is. Except, I don’t think so. It’s not perfect, but not horrible, either. In truth, no format can guarantee the best driver will win any championship. For proof, look at the recent NASCAR Cup winners — seven of the last 10 — who weren’t that season’s biggest winners.

His view is this: any format is flawed that doesn’t give its Big Hardware to its winningest driver. There should be no question that he (or she) was the best of the best all season. He cringes that a 0-for-36 driver can win the Cup over drivers with multiple victories. It’ll likely never happen, but even the possibility makes him cringe.

Here’s how it could: make the Playoffs on points, as Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs did this year; run well enough and score enough points in the three three-race elimination rounds to reach the Championship 4; he gets the Bill France Trophy if he finishes ahead of the other three finalists in Phoenix, regardless of where they finish in that last race. (Imagine the outcry of the worldwide racing community if that ever happened).

Fourteen drivers had “regular-season” victories to qualify for the Playoffs that open this weekend near Atlanta. They are Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton and Chase Briscoe. Winless top-10 finishers Gibbs and Truex Jr. made it on points.

It’s easier to plunk a butterfly with a slingshot than understand NASCAR’s championship formats through its 75 years. Basic finish-position points meant everything in the early days. Later, purse winnings and miles completed became factors. Race distances and track lengths eventually became important. At times, winning most of the long-distance, big-track, big-money races might be enough for the title. At times, quarter- and half-points were awarded.

After using finish-position and lap-leader bonus points between 1975-2003 the Playoffs arrived in 2004, the year after Matt Kenseth was the champ with one victory and 25 top-10s. Nine drivers won more that year — including Ryan Newman’s eight — but Kenseth’s consistency paid off. “Consistency has always been important,” says Logano, a two-time champion, “but you must win in the Playoffs, so that’s more important. The format is biased toward winning.”

Officials have tried a half-dozen formats since 2003, some of them revised several times. Some changes were subtle, others pretty obvious. Each was designed to keep as many drivers as possible Cup-eligible as deep into the season as possible. NASCAR didn’t want to lose fans and TV ratings if their favorite was no longer a championship hopeful. And then there’s this: the last third of NASCAR’s 10-month season goes head-to-head against pro and college football, the World Series and the start of college and pro basketball. Clearly, the Playoffs were designed to keep the public and media engaged.

That’s why the first “Chase” field in 2004 featured 10 drivers in a 10-race series that came down to the last race. When that didn’t help, NASCAR expanded to 12 drivers. (Former CEO Brian France added Jeff Gordon as No. 13 after the 2013 race-fixing scandal at Richmond). In 2014 his staff concocted the 16-driver, 10-race, four-round elimination system being used today.

After opening with 16, the four lowest-ranked in points are eliminated after Round 1 at Atlanta, Watkins Glen, and Bristol. (Eligible drivers make the next round by winning during the three-race “mini-series.”) Four more will be dropped after Round 2 at Kansas City, Talladega, and Charlotte. Round 3 at Las Vegas, Homestead, and Martinsville will cut four more and get the field down to four for the Nov. 10 season-finale near Phoenix.

Is that a good system? My friend thinks winning should mean more. Ditch the Playoffs and overtimes, award more points to winners, give bonus points for top-5 and top-10 finishes, and dump stage racing. If NASCAR insists on stage racing, make winning a stage more important than it does now.

Larson had dominated in 2021, with nine victories going into the Phoenix finale. He was running fourth and apparently out of championship contention until a late caution and a sensational pit stop led to his race- and Cup-winning victory. “I don’t know whether the system is fair or not,” he recently said. “It’s the system, so it doesn’t really matter” (what drivers think). “It makes for storylines and whatnot. The system is what it is.”

Truex Jr. said he might not have won in 2017 without the Playoff format. “But I might have won under other systems,” he said. “You know, win some, lose some. No matter what system they use, championships are hard to win. We all start out racing to the rules as they are written.””

My friend hates the Playoffs because only three of the last 10 champions won the most races. Since 2014, though, the championship has come down to four drivers in a one-race, 312-lap shootout in the desert.

And really now, isn’t that how the season should end?

Rocky Mount native Al “Buddy” Pearce has spent 55 years covering motorsports, from go-karts to Formula One and everything in between. He worked briefly as a young Evening Telegram intern before becoming a full-time racing writer in 1969. He’s the stock car editor forwww.autoweek.com and is the author of 50 First Victories, his 13th NASCAR book. He’ll be here on Saturdays with insight, history, opinions, news, questions, and critiques about motorsports. He’s in Newport News, Virginia, at omanoran123@gmail.com.