Ask nearly any longtime NASCAR Cup Collection fan in regards to the circuit’s best championship battle of all time, they usually seemingly will not title a season from 2014 to the current day.
Positive, NASCAR’s present knockout-style, “win-and-you’re-in” playoff format has produced loads of compelling moments, however the compelled “Sport 7” races and the lowering legitimacy of the championship have soured followers towards a format that was by no means actually wanted within the first place.
With 5 races remaining in NASCAR’s common season, the highest 4 drivers in factors — Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin — are separated by simply 20 factors, with the highest 10 in factors solely separated by 107 factors. With consistency being the primary issue in a driver being in rivalry for the regular-season title, there is no doubt the highest 4 have been the most effective all season.
When NASCAR first launched the “Chase for the Nextel Cup” in 2004, it hoped it could present the tightly contested factors battle taking part in out in 2024. It additionally served because the precursor to NASCAR’s present system, a take a look at run of types to gauge fan curiosity in a down-to-the-wire championship on a yearly foundation.
The unique Chase actually had its fair proportion of moments — Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards’ 2011 heavyweight battle stands out because the Chase’s magnum opus — however the 10-race battle on the finish of the season nonetheless diminished the season-long accomplishments of drivers who raced constantly properly.
For 54 years, NASCAR proved it did not want a playoff format to resolve its champion. Whereas the factors codecs within the first 20 years of the game hardly made any sense, the season-long Winston Cup format lastly proved to have probably the most endurance, and solely a ridiculously constant, one-win season by Matt Kenseth in 2003 may persuade NASCAR that the way in which it determined a champion wanted to alter.
Here is the issue, although: To drum up pleasure across the last 10 races of the season, NASCAR by chance neutered the joy of the primary 26. With one win locking a driver into the playoffs, there’s nothing stopping that staff from experimenting till the postseason rolls round, a method Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus employed en route to 5 straight titles from 2006 to 2010.
Whereas 15 essential playoff factors are on the road for Elliott, Larson, Reddick and Hamlin ought to they win the regular-season crown, a poor pair of races may see them out the playoff door after the primary spherical.
With 4 drivers going for the title in a winner-take-all bout in Race 36 each season, NASCAR has manufactured the joy of its championship race.
Races such because the 1992 Hooters 500 at Atlanta, nevertheless, show {that a} sophisticated factors format is not obligatory to supply a championship battle that comes all the way down to the ultimate lap.
That race at Atlanta was the season finale for arguably the best season of NASCAR racing ever, with six drivers having an opportunity to win the title when the inexperienced flag flew. Ultimately, it was Wisconsinite Alan Kulwicki who took the Cup by the slimmest of margins — 10 factors was the distinction between Kulwicki and second-place Invoice Elliott.
The story of Kulwicki’s nail-biting 1992 championship run stays particular as a result of it did not occur yearly. NASCAR nonetheless had an thrilling championship battle practically each season, however when it did not, it was as a result of the group cherished the chance to look at a driver crush his competitors for a whole season.
The championship remains to be the last word objective in NASCAR racing, however the luster, legitimacy and intrigue of of it have steadily fallen due to the sanctioning physique’s failure to acknowledge one thing essential: If pleasure is clearly manufactured, it isn’t that intriguing.
