July 1, 2025
Okay, I am late to this particular party. I always enjoy a good tournament, harkening back to the Stanley Cup tournament we used to do at one of my past workplaces and, even further back, the one-and-done WWF Wrestling Classic from 1985. However, I just never got around to making my picks.
Before I get too far into this, I want to reveal something. I think THIS is how the NASCAR Playoff system should go….with one tweak. Let the first three rounds (32->16, 16->8 and 8->4) be three races each, with the cumulative points acquired through the round deciding who advances. The final race would be the same, a four-driver shootout with the driver with the best finish being named champion.
There would be multiple advantages to this. First of all, such as this In-Season Challenge is supposed to provide, it would give fans that March Madness feel where they could be further engaged with the races and the results. They could challenge friends, even including those who don’t regularly watch NASCAR. (Sorry, but you can’t tell me that everyone who fills out a March Madness bracket for an office pool is a die-hard college basketball fan.) In fact, this might create more full-time NASCAR fans.
Including 32 drivers would allow more teams and more drivers a chance to increase their exposure and, hopefully, leading to more sponsorship. In a sport where a handful of teams seem to control 90% of the money, allowing the smaller teams an opportunity to grow and improve would be good for the sport as a whole. And yes, I know some (not all) fans would complain if a driver ranked #25 upset a team ranked #5 but likely by the second round most of the backmarkers would have been eliminated. And if a driver ranked in the 20s made a run in the playoffs, how amazing would such an underdog story be?
While some drivers (and fans and experts) may not like the one race finale, I would counter that football fans don’t seem to have an issue with weeks of the regular season and the playoffs come down to a single game (uh…the Super Bowl!) to decide the NFL championship. I would further suggest that the 2024 season coming down to a fantastic battle between two drivers, teammates even, over the last twenty laps is a lot better way to crown a champion than the days of the top driver needing to only finish in the Top 20 or being crowned champion a race or two before the finale.
Anyways, enough of my rambling of how I’d run NASCAR. Instead, let me present my picks for the rest of this In-Season Challenge.
Round #2
- Keselowski over T. Dillon
- Bowman over Wallace
- Elliott over Nemechek
- Stenhouse Jr. over Jones
- Gragson over Preece
- Hocevar over Reddick
- Allmendinger over Gibbs
- Buescher over Smith
Round 3
- Keselowski over Bowman
- Elliott over Stenhouse, Jr.
- Hocevar over Gragsson
- Buescher over Allmendinger
Round 4
- Keselowski over Elliott
- Hocevar over Buescher
Champions Round
- Hocevar over Keselowski
As much as I like Hocevar (he’s become my current favourite driver), I can’t believe I just typed that he is going to win this tournament. I will say my pick of Keselowski over Elliott might be the most controversial in my brackets, but I didn’t want to go too obvious. (It’s always easy to go with the most recent winner, but Brad K is starting a resurgence and I think will get some good finishes going forward.) Meanwhile, Hocevar is punching far above his weight and could pull off the shocker.
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