Let me be up front about this: I am a Chase Elliott fan and I was actively cheering for him to win the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville.
At the same time, I was watching with no small amount of amazement at the demise of Kevin Harvick’s title hopes. Harvick, who came into Martinsville with a cushion of over 40 points had tire issues early after contact with Matt Kenseth. For the rest of the race he was a lap down and hovered below the cutline, especially with Chase Elliott or other playoff contender Martin Truex, Jr. in the lead.
How could a guy with nine wins and a huge points cushion have it all go away over the course of one race? That is the question many in NASCAR nation will be asking themselves, and the answers may have long-term ramifications for NASCAR’s playoff system.
There are many fans (and probably not a few drivers, owners, teams, analysts) who haven’t approved of any adjustment to the way NASCAR crowns a champion since “The Chase for the NEXTEL Cup” was instituted in 2004, nor any of the succeeding changes. The fact that the winningest driver of 2020 will be watching another driver hoist the Bill France Cup in Phoenix next weekend will only add fuel to the fire that there’s something wrong with this particular playoff format.
It’s 2020 and if the events of the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that when people don’t get their way, they demand the entire system be “cancelled.” You’d like to think NASCAR would be above that sort of thing but, unfortunately, I’m going to guess it probably isn’t. Instead, I think we can all expect thousands of upset NASCAR fans to take to social media demanding whole-scale changes to the playoff and point system to ensure the winningest driver wins the championship.
And there is precedent for such a move. In 2003, Matt Kenseth became the NEXTEL Cup Champion after winning only one race while Ryan Newman, who won eight races, finished sixth in the points. While NASCAR claims this just a coincidence, I don’t think anyone believed it at the time or in the years since.
However, if we go back a little further in NASCAR history, we see that there was no such “reimagining” after the 1985 season. In 1985, Bill Elliott (Chase’s father, ironically) won the Daytona 500, the first-ever Winston Million, and 11 races in all.
Here’s your Milner Moment: Do you know who won the 1985 Winston Cup Championship? Darrell Waltrip – by 101 points, despite winning only three races (tied with Harry Gant for third most wins in 1985. Dale Earnhardt had four wins to finish second in that category.)
Despite even Darrell Waltrip thinking Elliott probably should have won the championship, there was no great call for major changes to the rules. People just accepted it because that was the way the point system was set up. They understood that Elliott had faded down the stretch allowing Waltrip to catch him in the points. (Now, one could argue that our society as a whole has changed but that’s another article for a totally different blog.)
The current playoff format is what it is. It is not perfect but I don’t believe any playoff format that NASCAR could dream up would please every single fan. As much as I like the current format, I’m not going to say I haven’t had issues with it. A couple of years ago, Chase Elliott won two of three races in the Round of 12, but still went into the Round of 8 under the cutline and was eliminated after the season’s penultimate race. Did I scream and holler and announce I was never watching NASCAR again? No, nor did I react that way when Kyle Busch stumbled through the playoffs and yet still walked away with the trophy, when it was obvious Denny Hamlin had been the best driver overall.
And yes, I feel that Harvick and Hamlin should be the two favourites heading to Phoenix but no matter how NASCAR decides a champion (most points, most wins, most laps led, etc.) there will always be people who will complain, especially if their driver doesn’t win. Truth of the matter is: you ask 100 NASCAR fans how to fix the playoffs so that the most deserving driver wins every year, you will get (amid a bunch of shrugged shoulders), you’d get 100 different solutions.
The issue is NASCAR fans can not declare the entire system needs to be cancelled because one of the other 99 solutions was chosen.
johnmilner.ca 