There’s a saying in NASCAR: “What Hendrick wants, Hendrick gets.” It’s not an insult against team owner Rick Hendrick, but more a reality that Hendrick’s power and ability to coalesce with NASCAR. The man is so powerful and his team is so successful that NASCAR can’t ignore him.
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And given that one of Hendrick’s top drivers, Chase Elliott, is so adamant about NASCAR dropping the current playoff system and returning to the previous system before 2004, when the driver with the most points earned all season wins the Cup championship, Hendrick is likely to not only back Elliott’s opinion but also support it himself.
But there actually is a method to Elliott’s madness, so to speak. Since the Next Generation/Gen 7 car was introduced in 2022, Team Hendrick has failed to win a championship. In fact, the last HMS driver to win the title was Kyle Larson in 2021, preceded by Elliott in 2020.
Since then, Team Penske has dominated the Cup championship, with Joey Logano winning in 2022 and 2024, sandwiched around Ryan Blaney in 2023.
In a breakdown of which drivers have led the Cup points standings every week since the introduction of the Next Generation/Gen 7 car in 2022, the top three leaders have all been Hendrick Motorsports drivers: Elliott, William Byron, and Kyle Larson (while the other HMS driver, Alex Bowman, is ninth).
According to stats, Elliott has led the standings the most weeks since the dawn of the Next Gen car: 27. Byron has led the points for 19 weeks, while Larson has led the points for 16 weeks.
Retired driver Martin Truex Jr. is next at 13 weeks, and then it drops off significantly to Ross Chastain in fifth, leading the points just seven weeks.
Then there’s weeks in the top 5 in the standings in the Next Gen era, and again, HMS is the far and away leader: Elliott and Byron are tied at 61 weeks each, while Larson is a close third at 58 weeks (Bowman is tied with the retired Kevin Harvick for 12th with just 15 weeks in the top 5).
So you be the judge: Hendrick drivers have dominated the standings since the Next Gen car was introduced and they have nothing to show for it.
Elliott Has History On His Side
That’s why Elliott is so adamant about getting rid of the current playoff system.
“The system would be just fine if you just had a full season (and no playoffs),” Elliott said. “And if somebody runs away with it, so what? Let’s celebrate the fact that somebody ran away with it, that somebody was just that good.
“Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that till I get done (retires).”
Former HMS driver Brad Keselowski agrees with Elliott.
“Strikes me just now, part of what’s holding the Nextgen car back in popularity is that the parity it has generated can’t be recognized and celebrated in a playoff format,” Keselowski wrote on X/Twitter.
“The small sample size of races in the current format creates a natural oblivious state to the excellence this car requires from teams and drivers to get weekly results. Or in short: What Chase said.”
And then there’s NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin, who spent his Cup career split between the old system and the current system. One has to wonder if Martin may have finally won a Cup championship if the old system had remained intact. Of course, we’ll never know.
Let’s give a statement by Elliott and then Martin’s endorsement:
Chase: “We’ve had a really good and competitive battle to the regular season (championship) over — correct me if I’m wrong — the last two or three years. It’s really been pretty tight all the way down to Daytona. If you just take that as your sample set over the first 26 weeks, it looks pretty solid to me.”
“The system would be just fine if you just had a full season. And if somebody runs away with it, so what? Let’s celebrate the fact that somebody ran away with it, that somebody was just that good. Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that til I get done.”
To which Martin said simply, “Mad respect for @chaseelliott here.”
So, if you were Rick Hendrick, wouldn’t you like to see the championship go back to the way it was for well over 30 years previously, when the driver with the most points in a full season won the title, rather than a driver who gets hot in the 10-race playoffs?
