Call it the postseason or The Chase, the new NASCAR format to decide a champion doesn’t go far enough.
While the “playoff” drew its share of criticism, NASCAR heard the calls from former drivers and fans the system revamp the system. Many wanted to go back to a 36-race format with no gimmicks. Many knew that was unlikely to happen. The main reason: money.
NASCAR sells the end of it season to potential TV partners as the way to determine a champion. Just running every race and accumulating as many points as possible might not be appealing to NBC, who carries those races, who paid a lot of money for something other than the old system. Ironically enough, NBC thought so little of NASCAR and the Playoffs they moved most of those final 10 races to cable channel that few people watch. That’s another story for another day.
Implementing The Chase doesn’t go far enough. Most fans (based on polls by a number of people) want a 36-race championship format. Resetting the points and determining a champion over the final 10 races is just another gimmick. NASCAR fans are tired of gimmicks. When gimmicks are used, that’s when people cry foul if something odd happens where NASCAR has to rule on something and it changes the outcome of the system (see Alex Bowman following the conclusion of The Roval in 2024).
Another thing NASCAR did not address (or chose to leave it alone) is stages for each race. Under the playoff format, stages were somewhat interesting, and points accumulated went to playoff points. This gave some juice to races. Despite stages being less important under this new system, NASCAR decided to leave those in place. Stages took away a lot of the unknowns in each race. Meaning, teams never know when a caution would wave. Instead, teams know when each stage break was and based their strategies on the known factors. There was something about not knowing if the first caution would come out on lap 18 or lap 118. Watch a NASCAR Classics race to see why.
Television was a big factor behind using stage breaks. They could plan their biggest commercial breaks based on when the stages came to an end. Maybe it helps the fan at home to plan their bathroom on snack breaks. Being at a race in person though, those stage breaks seem so long. There is a lot of riding around before pit stops happen.
The Playoff is gone and that is a good thing. Like former driver Mark Martin had been saying, trying to take racing and make it into something like other sports is not a good format. All one has to do is see the end of the Phoenix race where Denny Hamlin gets a flat tire at the end to take a championship away from him to see how much of crap shoot the system was. The Chase is better than a playoff, it still doesn’t go far enough.
