Disclaimer: If there is anyone who understands having a hill worth dying on in NASCAR, it’s me.
From 2019 to 2022, I railed passionately against NA18D, better known as the 550 package, under the conviction that full throttle, never lifting pack racing on intermediate tracks made a mockery of the most talented race car drivers I have ever covered. I think history will remember my stance more fondly than the decision makers will, at least in the four years that we did this as an industry.
This is all to say, I get it if you feel this way about the current elimination format, and I am not going to tell you that you are objectively wrong because that would be unfair and this is all in the spirit of good faith conversation.
I know what it is like to feel like this is no longer the sport, fundamentally, that you love and I would never disparage your feelings as a fan in feeling that way. Full stop. With that said, I do feel like we are missing some important points over what Joey Logano, Paul Wolfe and the Team Penske No. 22 accomplished this season, and I want to make the case that this championship actually aligns with everything that I think most of us profess to value about the discipline.
But I know there are strong feelings on this and understand this column is more about adding to the conversation than trying to flatly tell someone they are wrong for how they feel.
Roll Joey?
Joey Logano is the Alabama Crimson Tide.
It sounds absurd, but first year head coach Kalen DeBoer is attempting to replicate exactly what the Team Penske No. 22 just pulled off over the past 10 weeks. They are a legendary program that endured a near disastrous regular season with losses to Vanderbilt and Tennessee but thanks to the new expanded playoff format, very well could sneak in as a bottom seed with a chance to win the championship.
This doesn’t even sound that improbable.
It’s Alabama, and even without legendary leader Nick Saban, there is an expectation of greatness in the moments that matter the most like against then No. 1 Georgia or rivalry games at LSU and the playoffs. Those expectations are the same at Team Penske and it has never really been a surprise when the likes of Logano, Ryan Blaney, Josef Newgarden, Helio Castroneves or Rick Mears delivered either.
Motorsport is sport
But NASCAR isn’t a stick and ball sport.
Stop.
NASCAR and motorsports at large is sport all the same, built on the same pillars of competition, and with the same conceptual goal of winning. And somewhere over the past decade, doing a little less than winning has been glamorized over Victory Lane and the big checks.
Having a good points day.
Logano did not have a lot of good points days in 2024, a concept that has been explored ad nauseam over the past 10 weeks.
17.1 average finish
Seven top-5
13 top-10s
414 laps led
But for the third year in a row, Team Penske seemed to stumble out of the figurative gates a little bit but put the entirety of their resources towards simply winning their way in and being in a position to capitalize once the final 10 weeks arrived.
He and Wolfe then went out and won three times over those final 10, combining for the second most number of wins overall and that doesn’t even count a non-points MILLION DOLLAR win at North Wilkesboro in the All-Star Race.
Again, this team was the definition of sportsmanlike in 2024, meeting the biggest moments with an exceptional prowess.
Dislike the format on emotional grounds all day but discounting or de-legitimizing the accomplishment is undue disrespect. Having a final four provides multiple pathways to a chance to race for the Championship and regular season success still matters, despite what happened this year.
Three of the bottom four seeds won their way into the Championship Race last month. That’s a feature, not a bug.
More often than not, an eclectic mix of season long good points days mixed in with well-timed wins will be enough. But, credit also has to be given to those teams for winning their way in too. It’s not even like that final three-race round was the same as the gimmick-laden first two either.
This was Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville, three purely performance-based tracks and Logano, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney each won when they virtually had no other way forward. That should be celebrated.
Sure, it eliminated Kyle Larson and his six wins but playoffs conceptually are about responding to pressure packed, small-sample size moments. If you are that good, more often than not, you find a way.
Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty found a way under the Latford System. Jimmie Johnson found a way under the Chase for the Championship and Joey Logano has quickly become the face of the NASCAR playoff over the past decade.
It’s a different form of greatness to be sure but it is great nonetheless.
And what was written here about Logano when he first won his way into the final four is even more true now than it was a month ago.
It’s no different than the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, an 83-78 wild card team, that advanced through the playoffs that season and claimed the World Series over the Detroit Tigers. The 47-35 Houston Rockets won the NBA Finals.
The stupid, impossible example of winning every race, not winning the championship happened when the 2007 undefeated 16-0 New England Patriots lost to the 10-6 New York Giants.
This is just sports, y’all.
It’s also modern sports, because all other leagues have responded to these low percentage outcome championships by expanding post-season fields and creating additional rounds. The World Series is no longer between the two teams with the most wins in each league.
The champions are just as legitimate.
Ultimately, you don’t have to like this game, or the rules, but under the modern NASCAR Cup Series procedures, Logano is a grandmaster.  Â
Major League Baseball’s eventual response to the bottom seeded Cardinals winning the World Series was to introduce more randomness to the proceedings by adding four more playoff teams. Up until the Dodgers won the World Series last month, baseball went through two consecutive postseasons without the number one seed even winning a single playoff round, leading those fanbases to have the same conversations as the ones NASCAR fans are having now too.
In other words, this is all not unique to NASCAR, and remember that Supercars has even adopted a playoff format now too.
The NFL has expanded playoffs as has, full circle, NCAA College Football.
NASCAR’s playoff system is the March Madness of Stock Car racing in the social media and television age. Many of you will be loathe to accept it but sports are a television product designed to create moments. And sports fans love upsets.
But when upsets happen, it’s not a flaw of the system, it’s the result of a team digging down deep with their backs against the wall and winning when it matters the most.
That’s what champions do.