Illegitimate NASCAR Champions: Playoff Format Exposed By Incriminating Stat

Drivers enter turn four during a re-start during the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway.

Winning a Cup Series championship has never meant less than it does now, thanks to the existing playoff system rewarding luck and chance to an unpalatable extent. With several drivers expressing their discontent over the past several months, an interesting statistic has come to light and it makes the need for change much more apparent.

NASCAR Insights has unveiled the highest average postseason finish rate of drivers since 2014, the year in which the elimination-style playoff system came into existence. Only two drivers, Martin Truex Jr. in 2017 and Joey Logano in 2018, had the best average finishing rate in the postseason and went on to win the championship. In every other year, NASCAR failed to reward the best driver.

In 2024, Christopher Bell thundered through the playoffs with an average finish rate of 7.1. But he failed to even make the Championship 4. In 2023, William Byron spelled domination with an average finish rate of 6.1. Again, he couldn’t put things together at Phoenix Raceway and finished the season in third place. The list goes on with more agonizing examples.

So, when Bell said that the NASCAR champions of today are not “true champions”, who could argue against him? The Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s exact words were, “I can sit here and tell you from a driver in the sport that the way they crown a champion now with a one-race winner-take-all event is not a true champion.

“It’s clear that the champions of the old days are not viewed the same as the champions that we have today. I just think that there needs to be a bigger sample size of how you crown that champion. We’ll see what happens.”

There are hordes of fans who would support him in this contention. The voice for change has been growing steadily. What many seem to want at this juncture is a three-race round that decides who the champion is.

Others, like Mark Martin, have been asking for a return to the old full-season points format. Either way, NASCAR needs to draw a formula in which the legitimacy of the champion cannot be questioned. 

Post Edited By: Abhishek Ramesh
Christopher Bell NASCAR Playoffs

About the author

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Gowtham Ramalingam

Gowtham is a NASCAR journalist at The SportsRush. Though his affinity for racing stems from Formula 1, he found himself drawn to NASCAR's unparalleled excitement over the years. As a result he has shared his insights and observations by authoring over 3000 articles on the sport. An avid fiction writer, you can find him lost in imaginary worlds when he is not immersed in racing. He hopes to continue savoring the thrill of every lap and race together with his readers for as long as he can.

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