NASCAR insiders reflect on legacy of current single-race championship format

The single-race finale to decide the championship in NASCAR seems to be on its way out. This past weekend’s results were a microcosm of everything wrong with the format, as Connor Zilisch was denied a title in the Xfinity Series, and Denny Hamlin saw his slip away on the final restart in Phoenix.

As the dust settles on the desert, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic tired to make sense of the last decade-plus with this format. What will its legacy be? Gluck isn’t seeing it in a positive light.

“The legacy of this format is gonna be, I don’t even know. You know, Logano won three titles in this format. (Larson’s win) is going to go down as one of the big moments. And then Carl Edwards (losing to Jimmie Johnson) is going to go down as one of the big moments. What were the other classic moments of the championship race? You know, (Brian France) wanted this to be ‘Game 7 moments,’ right? What were the Game 7 moments that you got out of having a one race deal? Larson had a great pit stop in one year. But you had mistakes,” Gluck explained, via The Teardown.

“Denny putting too much tape on the car. Truex putting the tires on the wrong side. Tonight you have, (Hamlin’s) leading them with three laps to go. What were the great moments from this playoff? … It was supposed to make more people watch and more people be excited. Instead, less people watched, and the people that did watch felt crappy about it. So, what the hell? Why is it so hung up that we have to have a playoff, when you can have a 36-race season, which by the way, the points were very close.”

While Gluck wasn’t elated with what went down playoff-wise, Bianchi is remembering the format for some exciting moments, even if it fell on deaf ears: “I mean, in 2017 you had Kyle Busch and Truex racing hard at the end. That was compelling,” Bianchi added. “2018, you had the restart with Logano. Behind him were the big three that everybody was talking about, including Truex, who said he wasn’t going to win the damn war. They lined up, you know, 1-2-3-4 on that restart at Homestead. That was compelling.”

Regardless, most fans will be satisfied to see a new system put in place next season. Whether or not it’s a hit remains to be seen, but it was never more obvious than this year that NASCAR had to make a change.