It’s time for NASCAR to take a radical idea and drastically overhaul its points system.
The vulnerabilities of the current playoff system were on display once again Sunday at Martinsville, when Chevrolet drivers refused to pass William Byron in the closing laps and Christopher Bell bounced off the wall several times while passing Bubba Wallace. which suddenly slowed down in the final. lap.
Bell’s pass to Wallace put him in the final four for about 20 minutes before NASCAR deemed the move a “safety violation.” Bell moved down the racing order and Byron joined race winner Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick in the field of four drivers who will compete for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series title in Phoenix on Nov. 10.
NASCAR abandoned its full-season points format in 2004 in favor of a 10-race postseason that featured the top drivers from the first 26 races. At the time, NASCAR was the fastest-growing sports series in the country and had plans to challenge the NFL for top billing among American sports fans. The final race of the 2003 season, a race that didn’t matter for the title because Matt Kenseth had clinched the championship a week earlier, had more than 7.3 million viewers.
That playoff format has evolved several times in the two decades since it was implemented. It was first expanded from 10 to 12 drivers and then expanded again to 16 in 2014 when NASCAR decided the 10 races should be split into four different rounds with a winner-take-all race involving four finalists.
After chaos reigned for three seasons and small samples had too big an impact, the playoff system changed again in 2017 with the introduction of stage points. Four rounds remained, but drivers would be allowed to accumulate bonus points for race and stage wins in the hopes of having four of the season’s best drivers fighting for the title in the final race.
That is the format that still exists today. And after seven years, it needs to go away. NASCAR teams and manufacturers have become too good at gaming the system.
Just look at how the final laps unfolded at Martinsville. As Byron was just one position away from losing his spot in the final four as Chevrolet’s sole representative, he had two Chevy drivers behind him: Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon. Neither driver qualified for the playoffs, although they appeared to have faster cars than Byron in the closing laps.
Neither driver made any move toward Byron. Instead, both pilots ran side by side while Byron walked ahead of them.
As it was clear that the drivers behind him were not going to pass Byron, Toyota driver Bubba Wallace radioed to his team that he was getting a flat tire. While Blaney’s final lap lasted approximately 21.4 seconds, Wallace’s final lap lasted 24.9 seconds.
That allowed Bell, also a lap down, to pass Wallace in Turns 3 and 4. As Bell made the move, his car visibly came loose and slammed into the wall. He hit the wall again and again as he made his way to the finish line and gained no place.
The pass seemed to take him to the playoffs. But NASCAR had seen a similar move before. In 2022, Ross Chastain crashed his car into the outside wall to sneak into the title race. After the season, NASCAR said moves like Chastain’s would no longer be allowed in the future.
Bell’s move wasn’t exactly the same as Chastain’s. But that wasn’t good enough for NASCAR, which put Byron back in the final four at Bell’s expense.
No sanctions were immediately imposed on Wallace, Chastain or Dillon. And who knows, maybe NASCAR will do some research and penalize them during the week. After all, the sanctioning body has a rule that specifies that drivers and teams must try to achieve the best possible result in an event.
Longtime NASCAR fans will vividly remember why that rule exists. In 2013, Clint Bowyer intentionally spun at Richmond to try to get his Michael Waltrip Racing Martin Truex Jr. into the playoffs. In the days following the race, NASCAR booted Truex from the playoffs and added Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon to the field while expanding the playoff field from 12 to 13.
The racial manipulation scandal was enormous. And on Sunday he made it clear that teams and manufacturers are still rigging races in similar ways.
Not much has changed since Bowyer toured 11 years ago. A year later, Ryan Newman left Kyle Larson in Phoenix to make the championship race. Kevin Harvick made a rather suspicious move at the end of a playoff race at Talladega in 2015, although he denied seeing Trevor Bayne before crashing into Bayne’s car. In 2022, Cole Custer was penalized 50 points for slowing down to let teammate Chase Briscoe pass in an elimination race. These examples are not the only ones either. After the August race at Daytona, Xfinity Series driver Parker Retzlaff admitted he had no intention of pushing Ford driver Harrison Burton to victory and an automatic playoff berth.
Let’s be clear: the teams and drivers cannot be blamed for doing everything they can to help each other. They are heavily incentivized by NASCAR’s current monetary system. Playoff teams make significantly more money than non-playoff teams at the end of the season. And the manufacturer’s title remains an important aspect of racing.
But racing is also a big sport like baseball. And NASCAR’s current four-round playoff format gives teams too many opportunities to manipulate small-sample races.
NASCAR teams are incredibly smart and prepare for almost every scenario. And it’s much easier to prepare for scenarios in a three-race playoff round than in a full 36-race season.
As NASCAR’s television ratings have fallen precipitously over the past decade, it’s clear that the playoff system is not attracting casual viewers. Last season’s winner-take-all title race had just over half as many viewers as the “pointless” season finale in 2023.
NASCAR has nothing to lose by changing its playoff format once again. Casual fans clearly aren’t leaving NFL games for playoff runs. A good compromise would be to return to the 10-race playoff format of the 2000s. But an even better and fairer solution for everyone involved would be a season-long title race like Formula 1 and IndyCar have done. Yes, both series have lower television ratings than NASCAR in the United States, but racing fans will tune in for good, tough racing whether there’s a title on the line or not.
NASCAR’s audience right now is strictly racing fans. He owes his drivers and teams the opportunity to show who is the best throughout the season. And he may not just be better at playing the system in the fall.