NASCAR insider suggests playoff outrage could stem from Joey Logano, Penske rather than format alone

When did the conversation flip about the NASCAR elimination style playoff format? It started with Joey Logano, and his first championship win in 2018, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic believes.

That season, Logano outdueled Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. Harvick and Busch each finished the season with eight victories, but it was Logano who won the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, his third win of the season, to win the title. Logano would win his second championship in 2022 and another in 2024, making it three championships in a row for Team Penske (Ryan Blaney won in 2023). Ultimately, that was the “nail in the coffin” for fan sentiment of the playoff format, Bianchi said.

“At some point, this flipped,” Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast. “I don’t know when it is, it’s really just easy to point out at Logano and just be like, ‘That guy, they don’t like that guy.’ But I feel like it is Logano because remember in 2018, it was the big three and Logano, and he came out of nowhere in a year where these three guys won and that seemed to change the narrative. Then from there, it just kind of kept percolating every little bit.

“But it did seem to be a Logano thing because we didn’t have the conversation in 2020 with Chase Elliott, even Kyle Larson in 2021, even though he had a dominant year and won the championship, he wasn’t great in this race, he still had a great playoff and year. Again, Logano won again in 2022, and it seems to be a thing that it flipped and it’s never been able to reconcile back. Penske winning three championships in the manner they did it was kind of the nail in the coffin.”

Joey Logano loves the playoff format, will it stay in 2026?

With three championships since the playoff format was introduced in 2014, Logano will forever be deeply associated with this era of NASCAR. Logano has been a staunch defender of the format, saying it creates drama and storylines.

Next season, however, it’s very likely the format NASCAR uses to decide a champion will look different. At the very least, moving on from the one-race, winner-take-all finale seems all but guaranteed.

Bianchi’s colleague, Jeff Gluck, has never been a fan of the current format. Going forward, he wants something that’s “super credible, super legitimate.”

“I thought a lot about this actually about when the attitude changed,” Gluck said. “First of all, let’s be honest, and I went back to my article in 2014 where some people never liked this format, including myself. When Kyle Busch did win with the broken leg, there was certainly a lot of people going, ‘This is not OK.’

“… I don’t care about exciting and entertaining. I just want something that’s super credible, super legitimate, something people feel good about, and you get to the season, and you go, ‘Man, this person absolutely deserved it. They kicked everybody’s butt, let’s celebrate them. Man, great year.'”