In many ways, the current Chase for the Championship was a response to Joey Logano’s success in The Playoffs, just as much as The Playoffs were a response to Jimmie Johnson winning six titles under the previous version of the Chase.
The original Chase was a response to Matt Kenseth effectively winning the 2003 Winston Cup with races left in the season with just a single win to his credit. He clinched one race early but it was a sizeable advantage for most of the fall.
Such is life in NASCAR, the endless pursuit of a format that combines entertainment and integrity in equal parts, leading the sport back to a different version of 10 races to score the most points.
But unlike the previous version used from 2004 to 2013, NASCAR seeded drivers based on larger increments and the value of winning a race has never been greater in terms of points earned.
This is to say nothing of the points paid out to stage racing.
The irony in how this Chase for the Championship has begun is that Logano has contended even after a start to his season that seemingly should have made a fourth title a statistical unlikelihood.
He was 20th in the standings after 18 races. But then he started winning and was running within the top 10 practically every week. He drove his way to ninth by the end of the regular season and was reset to just 65 points back prior to the Southern 500.
Winning the Bristol Night Race, combined with competitive races at Darlington and Gateway, Logano drove his way to just 16 points behind Kyle Larson with seven left to go. He broke a system that his critics thought would derail him.
“That is extra motivation,” Logano said. “So, whether they know it or not, when they say what they say, they’re helping me, so thanks. When you hear those comments, I can say they don’t matter, but I’m also like ‘let me prove something to you’ (and) ‘let me show you we can do it in different ways and that this team can do it.’
“So again, there is a long way to go and we’re not even in the lead, so the comeback hasn’t actually fully happened but we have come a long way a lot further than I expected.”
All of this begs the question if this format is working. NASCAR aimed to reward season long consistency with the points reset. And then, upon the start of the Chase, NASCAR still wanted to have race wins be the ultimate goal.
The first three races this fall have been won by Christopher Bell, Larson and Logano, who entered as the sixth, seventh and ninth seeded drivers respectively. Denny Hamlin entered as the championship leader but three middling races has him trailing Larson by one point.
At face value, the system appears to be rewarding those who were good all season with those who have won the first three races. And despite losing the championship lead, Hamlin is satisfied with how this playoff campaign has started from a legitimacy standpoint.
“Yeah, I certainly think so,” Hamlin said. “And (Larson) and (Bell) and those guys that have been up front every week, (Logano), they’re reaping the benefits of running well at the right time and they’ve caught right up.
“So now we got to put pedal to the metal.”
Larson said he would ‘certainly prefer’ to be one point up than one back. His team has executed over the first three weeks and won, climbing from a 55-point deficit to a one-point advantage.
He’s largely content with the format but has mixed opinions about how valuable stage points are under the new status quo.
“There’s not ever going to be a perfect format that I think that everybody in the world will agree on, but I think this has definitely been a much better format for crowning a champion that is deserving,” Larson said. “… I feel like stage points feel even more important than they’ve ever been, which you can argue is a good thing or a not so great thing.
“We’ve scored the most stage points all year. But I feel like, if you really want to talk about I guess consistency, you can say, yeah, you need to be consistent all race.
“But I feel for the guys like Ryan Preece. He’s put together a really, really solid Chase to this point, yet he’s still over 100 points out because he hasn’t been able to score any stage points. If we didn’t have stage points, I bet he’d be three to five positions ahead of where he’s at in points right now. So, yeah, that’s the only thing I would look at being different, maybe.”
To that point, Preece appreciated the sentiment, and conceded that he is a purist at heart but is enjoying this version of the Chase for the Championship.
“I just wish there was more of a reward for finishing races rather than rewarding stage points,” Preece said. “And then, if you happen to have, whether it be an unfortunate situation or your own decision, those guys that can max out stage points and then not finish a race, it saves their championship goals.”
Of course, Hamlin and Blaney would argue that they earned that advantage each race, having their championship chances buoyed by their stage points in each of the first three races, combined with their number one and number two seeds.
All told, Preece does like this format.
“Listen, this happens in every sport where somebody could get hot,” Preece said. “I mean, somebody can be hot all year long and then if they’re not at the right time, they’re not going to win the championship in the playoffs. …
“I think if you’re Denny Hamlin who had a (25 points lead) going into this chase, he just has to get on the horse. I’m just using him as an example because he was leading the points coming into it.
“You got to execute the final 10 races. That’s the most important part. So yeah, I think that this system is the closest we’ve been since the heydays of racing all season.”
Because winning means so much, any driver could theoretically get hot as Preece put it and go on a championship run, even for drivers like William Byron that has suffered various misfortunes in the early going.
“If we can rattle off a couple wins, we can be kind of in the mix or we can finish top five in points or whatever that kind of ceiling is, I don’t know,” Byron said. “It still pays more to finish fifth in points than it does 13th.”
Even at 122 points back, Denny Hamlin made that much up on Tyler Reddick over the summer in a very quick stretch, just by winning numerous races.
“I think it’s a bigger points swing than people thought,” Byron said. “Everyone was like, ‘Man, you got to be top five in points,’ but that was looking at the old Chase. It didn’t account for winning races and stage points.
“So I feel like it’s really, when this Chase started, I think it was anybody’s ballgame. It’s rewarding the guys that have won so far.”
Chase Elliott says winning should mean this much.
“I mean, you’re not going to back into a win over the last 10 weeks, maybe Talladega, but past that, anybody who’s winning any of these chase races is a legit contender or at least right there in the hunt,” Elliott said. “So yeah, I really support it. I think it’s a great balance and I don’t think you’ll hear one person complain about the champion and who it is or who it’s not or why they deserved it or why they didn’t deserve it.
“That should no longer be a topic of conversation.”
And he’s said this would be the case since the format was unveiled in January too.
“I’ve said that from the rip, Elliott said. “I think this is the best balance of the options that were realistic, which full season was never an option, just so everyone understands that, right.
“That was never going to happen.
“So, out of the options that we had, we were going to have to reset it somehow, some way. This was the best way to do it. 10 weeks is a long time and you’re not going to fake it for 10 weeks and whoever wins it in 10 weeks deserves to win it in my view.”
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