NASCAR has to change course after failures of Playoff era put on display in Phoenix

A very confusing, emotional, and strange NASCAR championship weekend has come and gone. For the most part, no one knows how to react. NASCAR fans and media, and even drivers and team owners, are still trying to find the right words.

Corey Heim saved NASCAR from a nuclear disaster, but it took a seven-wide move to the inside of the track to get to P2. Then he needed another restart to win the race. All that for Heim to get what he and he alone deserved this year in the Truck Series.

It was a great relief. You could feel it from Corey, Scott Zipadelli, and everyone at the track. Had Heim lost on a late restart, or because he took four tires instead of two, it would have been bad. In fact, it’d be what Kevin Harvick said it would be – embarrassing.

Then, Saturday happened. Jesse Love defeated Connor Zilisch and took the crown right off his head. It is not only a shame for Connor but also for Jesse. In the short term and maybe even late into his career, his title will be questioned and maligned. I wish it weren’t the case, but it is. And Love doesn’t deserve it. What we should have been discussing was Love’s first official win on a non-superspeedway.

On top of that is the fact that he beat Zilisch to do it. A proverbial passing of the torch between best friends as Zilisch goes off to the Cup Series.

Drivers go through a 38-week season. There are 33 races for the Xfinity Series. NASCAR is often overlooked as an endurance racing series, but it is just that. The long races are only matched by the length of the season.

Instead of talking playoff formats and who is deserving and this and that, the conversation should be about how great these drivers were all season long. We should have been celebrating Zilisch as the 2025 champ. He is in the hearts and minds of many. We should be writing about how much of a statement Love made to end the season. Talking about what it means for his return in the 2026 season. After all, he did it by taking down the most talented driver in the series.

The emotions on Saturday were high. There were tears of sadness and of joy all around among the 88 and 2 teams. Then there was the feeling of the fans and everyone else who watched what happened. It felt dirty. The best moments in sports create high and varied emotions, right? The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, right?

Well, funerals are often emotional, full of tears and visceral moments. There can even be a small bit of joy found in times like this. It doesn’t mean the funeral was good or enjoyable. The NASCAR playoffs didn’t just take the championship away from Zilisch; they stripped any and all joy that the end of a season should bring, and have made a fanbase feel robbed and cheated of a moment that they expected and wanted.

Now, it comes out this week that Zilisch losing the Xfinity championship cost him a shot to test a Hypercar for Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA in Bahrain as part of the upcoming FIA WEC Rookie Test. A chance to put NASCAR’s 19-year-old phenom on display for the world to see. Gone.

The NASCAR playoffs stripped Zilisch of a title and a chance to grow his brand and superstardom. American drivers already have trouble getting approved for FIA-sanctioned series, and now NASCAR’s own system is doing more damage.

Finally… Sunday. The buzz that built up throughout the race was electric. Every lap Denny Hamlin led felt like one more step towards seeing a career and a life’s worth of work culminating in the moment he had always dreamed of. It was going to be Denny’s version of “20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration.”

Did Hamlin have a Zilisch-esque season? No. Did he dominate in points? No, not really. He did win the most races. Then, he went into the NASCAR playoffs and performed beautifully. For all of the criticism that the playoff system has had, it felt like we had it go right for the first time in years. The four final drivers were all worthy of being there. You could have plugged Ryan Blaney in for one driver or another, and it would have still been just as good.

So, why is everyone upset about Hamlin losing? Why the melancholy taste in everyone’s mouths? There was a feeling that the mess on Saturday could be fixed by watching Hamlin reach the mountaintop. 60 wins, the lawsuit, his dad being terminally ill… it was the storybook ending that so many wanted to see.

Before William Bryon blew a tire it felt like everyone was ready to react. They were ready to cheer, boo, and welcome Hamlin as the new champion in whatever way they felt appropriate.

Then, he got beat on a late restart, stuck behind non-playoff drivers, with his four tires against two, and he lost in two laps with seemingly nowhere to go. Kyle Larson won his second title, finishing P3 in the championship race and never leading a lap.

Had Larson won the race instead of Blaney, a non-Championship 4 driver, I think it would take the sting away a little bit. But the damage had already been done. It was done when Joey Logano won in 2024, when Kevin Harvick’s 9-win season ended in the Round of 8 in 2020, and when Carl Edwards lost in 2016. And again, on Saturday night with Zilisch. Overtime and the playoffs are a two-headed beast. A beast that has fundamentally changed the course of the sport, and not for the better, either.

NASCAR fans’ most vocal grievances all converged on each other in those final moments of Sunday’s race. While teams took responsibility for blown tires and running them far below the recommended pressures, for fans, it looked like a Goodyear issue. On top of that was the overtime restart. Then there was the result, both of the race and the championship.

Mamba Smith said something earlier this season, and I do not bring this up to dunk on him or get cheap internet points. He said that the NASCAR playoffs are not about crowning the best driver all year. They are about crowning the team that performed the best when the lights were brightest.

You can agree or disagree with that sentiment. But let’s take it at face value as if that is what NASCAR wants out of this system, because I believe they do. The “Game 7 moment,” as it were.

Sunday, the NASCAR Playoffs couldn’t even do that. The driver who performed the best when the lights were brightest was Denny Hamlin. Best car, best driver, incredible moves to take the lead and then distance himself from the field. No one was touching him on Sunday. That is, not without a late-race, two-lap shootout in overtime.

If the NASCAR Playoffs are supposed to create a “Game 7 moment,” then this year’s championship was a complete failure. In 2024, when Ross Chastain became the first driver to upset the Championship 4 in the finale, it was at least a great race to the checkered flag. No weird, wacky restarts. Ryan Blaney was the best of the Champ 4 that year and finished a close P2 in the race to become champion. That felt reasonable.

Seeing Larson never lead a lap, is that Game 7 behavior? To have the championship-winning driver, team owner, and teammate of the champion take time to feel sorry for Denny Hamlin in their post-race comments… who does that benefit? When Larson is having to explain he’s “happy” but it is “awkward” to win his second championship in that manner, what does that project to the rest of the motorsports world and the broader sports world?

Larson is a driver who deserves to have two championships. There were years recently where he was by far the best driver, and he didn’t walk away with the title due to the NASCAR playoffs. Sunday and the way it all went down did more to handicap his legacy than it did to grow his legacy.

Thankfully, this is the final time we talk about a one-race finale. But the damage is done. The story should have been, WOW, look at these two young champions who dominated and are the future stars of the sport, and how about the wily veteran getting his long-desired championship?

We could have been talking about how the end of this season ties into the beginning of next season. Love would be seen as the standard-bearer going into 2026 for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. We would be celebrating Heim and Zilisch, and what is to come next for the two most talented prospects in the sport.

Monday would have been a massive celebration of Hamlin and his career, and what it took to get to this point. But an overtime restart, which is a rule that entered the sport the same year as the NASCAR Chase/playoffs, was what decided the race.

Those are stories you can sell to the mainstream sports audience. Instead, we got one championship that felt like NASCAR got it right, even if by accident, and two where they got it wrong in two completely different ways.

Saturday’s problem was about why the full-season points system is simply better than the Championship 4 format. Sunday’s problem was the fact that NASCAR’s own system, which they created, couldn’t even do what it was designed to do in the first place.

You add on reminders of bad tires, bad overtime restarts, and the crushing feeling of watching Hamlin lose in the fashion he did, and NASCAR has arrived at a real issue of legitimacy. If that isn’t fixed quickly, by 2026, the sport may suffer in the long term at a time when there is so much potential for growth.

We heard from Truck, Xfinity, and Cup drivers, team owners, and more that the preferred format is 36 races. Even Rick Hendrick said it! At this point, if NASCAR believes a modified playoff will work, they may be walking into the next 21-year mistake, perhaps one they can’t recover from.

William Byron looked like he had just shot his dog after the race. He didn’t want the race to come down to a late caution he caused. Denny was clear by multiple seconds. Just 40 seconds longer, and he takes the white flag. The fact that Byron was seemingly more upset by Hamlin’s loss than his own was eye-opening. Byron couldn’t even celebrate for his teammate.

I’m sure that NASCAR had decided upon a format before Championship 4 weekend. It has likely been in place for weeks, if not months. I am concerned that NASCAR officials will be more worried about creating the next viable playoff format or creating a new era of the sport that they can slap their name to, when it is plain to see that a return to tradition is what is needed.

The sport is not about the officials, executives, and leaders at NASCAR. They are there to set the framework so the people who make up the sport can put on a show. If Jim France wants to leave a legacy on this sport, he can do a few things. He’ll turn back the clock to a full-season championship, no overtime, and a desire to let the drivers and teams control their own destiny. It is imperative for the long-term health of the sport.

In the past, 2016, 2020, and 2024 were simply glancing blows. This year was a direct hit to NASCAR, and quite frankly, any version of playoffs in motorsports.