If a series is going to create artificial stakes, the payoff might as well be exciting.
The NASCAR Cup Series playoff format is a ridiculous gimmick designed to manufacture drama at every point of the 36-race season. It's something no racing championship anywhere else in the world does, and arguably, it's antithetical to the spirit of competition. Sometimes, however, it produces very fun, high-stakes racing.
Saturday night's regular-season finale at Daytona was a perfect example. NASCAR's playoff format has sixteen spots. Full-time drivers get a spot for winning a race, with whatever number of remaining spots left going to non-race-winners with the highest points total. On Saturday night at Daytona, there was one spot left. This year, Bubba Wallace headed into the final night of the 26-race qualifying period with a comfortable lead in the points among non race winners.
Other than a narrow mathematical chance for Ty Gibbs to pass Wallace on points if stages broke a certain way, or if Wallace crashed but Gibbs did not, the following race was simple. At any given time, about half the field represented a playoff berth for the 23XI Racing veteran, and another half represented a late bid from a new driver.
The second crash left the race with an overtime ending, a two-lap shootout where the top-ten controlled Wallace's fate. Roush Fenway Keselowski's surging duo of Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski eventually pulled away with some slick synchronized bump drafting, rendering all the drama moot and handing Wallace his first career playoff bid.
Is this championship format ideal? No, of course not. The ideal format is the one used until 2003, where the driver that collects the most points over every championship race wins the trophy at the end. This marks the 20th year since NASCAR gave up on the classic format, and so we are long past the point of having to accept that NASCAR is committed to this particular mistake.
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