Holy.Crap. It really seems the full season system is gaining steam here
And per Jeff Gluck of The Athletic
The championship is currently decided by eliminations, which often do not focus on the best drivers, let alone reward them.
www.nytimes.com
“When NASCAR first convened
a committee in February to gather feedback on the future of its championship format, only one person advocated for eliminating NASCAR’s playoff system altogether.
But in
the most recent meeting last week, numerous influential committee members spoke on behalf of scrapping the playoffs and returning to the full-season points format NASCAR used until 2003, which crowned a champion simply by total points accrued over the entire schedule of races.
In 2004, in an effort to infuse more fan interest in the final races of the season, NASCAR created the “Chase” format. After 26 races, the top drivers qualified for a 10-race showdown, points were reset, and the eventual champion was the driver from that group who topped the standings over those races.
The format was tweaked over the years and then overhauled again in 2014, when NASCAR moved to its current format — a 16-driver playoff over the final 10 races, with drivers eliminated at three different cutoff points before a final race between the four remaining drivers, top finisher takes all.
NASCAR is now seriously weighing the possibility of drastically overhauling the playoffs or doing away with them altogether. A modified playoff system, in which the most criticized elements of the current format are tweaked, may still win out. Yet the mere chance of going back to a 36-race schedule determining the series champion — a scenario which seemed borderline impossible seven months ago — marks a dizzying turnaround that speaks to a crossroads for stock car racing.
If NASCAR did opt for a return to the way its champion was decided for most of its history, the choice would be driven by a variety of reasons.
Here are five of them.
1. Star power
One of the biggest issues in today’s NASCAR is the lack of major names who can transcend stock car racing and reach the general sports fan. Today’s NASCAR lacks a Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr., who would be famous enough to host “Saturday Night Live” (as Gordon once did) or draw large numbers of viewers who just want to watch them race.
Part of that is a playoff format that currently does not elevate greatness. The championship is currently decided by a series of short rounds and eliminations, which are intended to reset the field and prevent one driver from running away with the title. But the playoffs often do not focus on the best drivers, let alone reward them.
For example: As the regular season winds down, most of the storylines are focused on which mid-pack drivers will qualify for the 16-driver field — thus emphasizing non-winning drivers who might be outside the top 10 in the point standings.
Then, in the Round 1 elimination race, all of the TV coverage concerns which of the bottom drivers will get cut — again putting the spotlight not on the stars, but on the lesser-contending drivers barely trying to keep their longshot hopes alive.
By the time the playoffs get cut to eight drivers — perhaps the bulk of the true contenders — there are only four races left in the year, and NASCAR is racing against NFL Sundays on each occasion.
In a potential full-season format, the focus would be on a handful of drivers throughout the summer and fall. They would be talked about and elevated among fans’ consciousness, potentially helping to grow their brands and star power over time.
Currently, repeat winners in the regular season — victories which don’t affect the playoff picture — get largely overlooked or brushed past compared to when a new winner qualifies for the playoff field. In a 36-race system, those repeat wins would mean extending a lead or closing a gap to the championship leader, which would call more attention to the elite drivers.
2. Devaluing the regular season
Drivers and teams lack the incentive to care about each race in the regular season.
Yes, there’s a chance they could win. And there’s a chance they could collect points to use during the playoffs. But with the win-and-in system, all drivers know it only takes one victory in 26 races to qualify for championship eligibility.
Let’s say a driver wrecks in the Daytona 500 and then blows an engine in the Las Vegas spring race. Are they going to be devastated? No, because all that really matters is making it through the playoff rounds in the fall.
If there were a full-season format where each of the 36 races were weighted equally, championship-contending drivers could never let up. They would have to maximize every finish and treat races in March, April and May as important as those in September, October and November. Bad finishes would represent a points hole from which drivers might become desperate to emerge.
NASCAR is at its best when it has consistency in storylines from week to week, the rolling “soap opera on wheels” which gives fans a thread to follow and a reason to tune in. That could build viewership habits; right now, it’s at times hard to identify the true contenders and rivalries because it’s constantly shifting with the roller coaster format.
For example: Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson might be two of the top favorites for this year’s championship — but we won’t know that yet until the final weeks, if not the season finale itself. So while they’re both generally trying to advance, neither driver is necessarily trying to directly outperform the other — which would change if they were pitted against each other as two of the remaining title contenders in a full-season system.
3. Motorsports are not other sports
One core problem with any “playoff” in racing is the difference between motorsports and “stick and ball” sports. The reasons are the same for why other racing series like IndyCar and Formula One (which has seen explosive growth without any sort of playoff format) have never strayed from a full-season points format.
First, racing is not a one-on-one competition. In NASCAR’s championship race between four drivers, there are 32 other cars on the track who could do unpredictable things — cause a crash, have a mechanical failure or accidentally drift up the track in front of another car. Having the champion of the longest season in sports potentially determined by a backmarker driver who messes up seems, to many fans, an unreliable method that can cheapen the outcome.
Second, no two racetracks are the same. Whether it’s size, shape, banking or grip level of the asphalt, various aspects of racetracks suit different drivers and teams’ strengths and represent weaknesses for others. By nature, focusing on one track or even a few races to determine the championship doesn’t truly reflect the best driver of the season.
Similarly, the field can be skewed by a driver who somewhat randomly wins a superspeedway race or one who is an ace at a certain type of track — say, Shane van Gisbergen on road courses — which earns spots over the season’s most consistent performers. This year, van Gisbergen won four races on road courses and entered the playoffs as the No. 4 seed, only to get quickly eliminated in Round 1 after he underperformed on three oval tracks.
4. The playoffs haven’t worked
The current system was designed to increase drama and entertainment, and it arguably achieved that. Drivers were forced into must-win situations and sometimes excelled with their backs against the wall in heroic moments.
But that didn’t translate into viewership. It would be one thing if more people tuned in to watch the playoffs, but Sunday’s Round 2 opener at New Hampshire drew a paltry 1.29 million viewers; 20 years ago, the New Hampshire playoff race drew 5.5 million viewers.
In fact, none of the four playoff races this season has touched 2 million viewers.
So if the current system isn’t generating the intended audience — while also raising questions and criticism about its credibility — then why keep it?
At the same time, there’s a good chance that when fans see the best driver of the season rewarded for excellence and drivers know they won’t get tripped up by a format they perceive to be gimmicky at times, the “drama” will come from naturally unfolding situations. Drivers will still need to be excellent and not merely average to win a season-long championship.
5. Simplification
The champion in a full-season format is determined like this: Whoever collects the most points wins.
That’s it. There’s no debate over which drivers deserve to qualify for the playoffs (the current “win-and-in” system has caused headaches at times), there’s no discussion of the confusing “playoff points” (separate from the regular points) earned for stage wins or race victories.
And most importantly, there’s certainly no talk of whether the eventual champion was worthy of his title.
The drawbacks include that if one driver has a particularly dominant season and runs away with the championship, it would render the final races largely moot. But in the era of NASCAR’s Next Gen car — which is a spec vehicle, requiring teams to use identical parts from a single supplier — teams cannot build their way to an advantage like in previous generations. By nature, it should be relatively close; there are currently seven drivers within 115 points for the mythical full-season title with six races remaining. Earlier this season, Chase Elliott overcame a 112-point deficit and went from fifth to first in just six races.
By the way, if someone did run away with the title and clinch early — wouldn’t that driver deserve it? While former NASCAR CEO Brian France often spoke of his desire for “Game 7 moments,” that overlooks the fact Game 7s are special because they don’t happen every time. Some series result in one-sided sweeps; others are classics.
The classics cannot be forced and must happen organically, which is something NASCAR’s current format does not allow. When the points are reset four times and the remaining drivers have a one-race playoff, it waters down greatness.
There might be some years when one athlete is dominant, but that’s sports. And that also happens to be how legends are made.
