For 8 years now, NASCAR has been using an elimination style playoff format to determine its champion. While it was quite interesting in its inaugural season, it quickly became unpopular among many fans. The way the format currently works in the Cup series: 16 drivers enter the 10 week playoffs. Most of these drivers becoming eligible by winning at least one race in the much touted “win-and-you’re-in” system. After 3 races, the 16 driver playoff field becomes 12, and so on until there’s 4 drivers left to compete in a winner-take-all (or highest finisher) championship race. On paper, this idea seems great. But 16 drivers is nearly half of the full time field, so it’s really not that special. Additionally, in its 4th season (2017), NASCAR introduced stage racing, where additional points are given in the middle of a race.
So a format that is slightly confusing and gives half the full time field a chance at the championship just can’t be thought of as the best we can do. By the time the playoffs come, the 16 playoff drivers get their points reset and this is where it gets MORE confusing. If you win a stage you get 1 playoff point (1 playoff point=5 regular points). If you win a race you get 5 playoff points. When the points reset, drivers with playoff points are given their bonus points to start the round. For a sport that’s just cars going in circles, this is a wildly perplexing points system.
So with this in mind, here’s how I would fix the NASCAR points system. First off, we’re calling it “The Chase” again. The word “Playoffs” doesn’t really work for NASCAR. Second, we’re getting rid of special colors. Back in the Monster Energy days, amazing paint schemes were ruined by the neon green splitter and spoiler. The only time the special decals looked somewhat decent was in 2014 (the first year of this format) when the then Sprint Cup series had their playoff drivers sport yellow roof numbers. Even then it didn’t look too great on some cars.
Now that we have cosmetics out of the way, it’s time to take care of the real stuff. First, we need to cut the field size down. Like I mentioned before, 16 drivers is close to half the field, so a playoff spot isn’t very special as of now. I’m going to cut it down to 6. Six drivers will make up the Chase. Also, we’re abolishing the elimination format. The first few rounds of the playoffs are spent eliminating the lesser-drivers, and seemed to be more for television drama than anything else. Next, we’re shortening the Chase from 10 weeks to 4. Since we’ll have less drivers making the Chase, we should add a few more weeks in for drivers to make some moves to get in. Lastly, we’re going to have a little fun and make the championship race like the Super Bowl and put it at a different venue each year.
Next up, we’re going to get into the points/winning aspect of the Playoffs. We’re abolishing the win-and-you’re-in system. This system locks you into the playoffs by winning one race. If you win an early race, you’ve got the whole rest of the season to test and tune, and the incentive of winning kind of diminishes. This system is also flawed when you get a long shot winner like Chris Buescher in 2016 and Michael McDowell in 2021 taking a playoff spot from another driver that may have been more deserving. Additionally, we’re fixing stages too. I know that there’s a lot to be said on that topic, but that’s for another day. Instead of throwing a yellow, just award the points and keep it green. The fun of pit strategy is sort of taken away by the guaranteed cautions. Finally, we’re getting rid of playoff points so the six Chase drivers all start with 2000 points. These extra points just make the math more confusing when it comes to point calculations, and don’t add to the on track racing.
I know that this system is far from perfect, and no system ever will be perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction. From the minor cosmetics, to the complex mathematics, everything needs a little fixing. What would your playoff system look like? Let me know on Twitter and follow me while you’re at it!
Motor Max 