In the fall of 2020, Kevin Harvick stood at Martinsville Speedway knowing he only needed a single point to make the Championship 4. One point. That’s all that stood between him and a shot at the NASCAR Cup Series title. The man had dominated all year, nine wins, 27 top tens, the best average finish in over a decade. It wasn’t just a good season, it was an all-time great. But in that critical final playoff race, a flat tire and a desperate spin attempt cost him everything. He didn’t even make it to the finale at Phoenix.
Harvick, stunned and candid, said after the race, “You have to put together a few weeks, and we didn’t put together these last few weeks like we needed to. That’s the system that we work in, and it’s obviously skewed more towards entertainment than the whole year.” His quote hit harder than any crash that weekend. What was once a championship built on season-long excellence had become a sprint through chaos. Harvick didn’t lose because he wasn’t the best driver in 2020. He lost because one day went wrong at the worst time.
Now, five years later, Harvick’s fall remains a bitter turning point. And with the 2025 regular season approaching the end, the NASCAR garage is once again buzzing with debate. Drivers, legends, and fans are asking the same question: Is this system truly fair? For many, Harvick’s story is no outlier; it’s the clearest example of a flawed format. One bad day, one lost legacy. That’s the cost of NASCAR’s playoff system.
The problem with NASCAR’s playoff system!
The current playoff format was meant to fix things. It was supposed to create drama, boost ratings, and keep fans watching until the last lap of the last race. But in doing so, it broke what made NASCAR great: season-long excellence. The elimination-style bracket, with resets and cutoffs, doesn’t reward greatness over time. It rewards survival in chaos. It rewards timing and luck. And too often, it punishes the best driver in the sport.
Just a few days ago, Mark Martin reignited this debate, saying, “The word playoff is very catchy. It’s wonderful, except we ain’t playing. Nobody plays. And there aren’t two people out there… Even the championship, last round, if it was really a playoff, there’d be four cars on the track, not 36.” His issue isn’t just with the format; it’s with the language and logic behind it. For Martin and many others, racing is not a game of quarters and timeouts. It’s about endurance, adaptation, and consistent excellence over a long, grueling season.
What championship format should NASCAR use?
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) June 22, 2025
Since 2004, only four regular-season champions have gone on to win the Cup title. That means in most years, the best-performing driver in more than 25 races doesn’t win the championship. In 2020, Harvick had a 7.3 average finish, better than almost any modern champion, but missed the final due to a one-off day. Similarly, in 2023, Martin Truex Jr. won the regular season title, then quietly bowed out in the Round of 8. This isn’t rare, it’s the rule.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., a voice of reason in modern NASCAR, spoke up on his podcast, “And so where we are right now is drivers make the final round at Phoenix, and they will tell you they are more proud of making the final round than whatever may happen that day in that championship race, because getting to that point is hard, right? Super hard.” In other words, the final race doesn’t reflect the full journey. It’s a lottery, not a test of season-long skill.
The structure also reduces the value of season-long resilience. A tire goes down. A pit stop gets botched. Someone else wrecks in front of you. Suddenly, your season’s over. That’s not strategy, that’s survival. The system doesn’t reward greatness; it punishes bad timing. However, Joey Logano, who has benefited from this structure, sees it differently: “It rewards consistency.” But critics point out that Logano’s 2024 run shows the flaws. After having an average finish of more than 17, he got a chance to participate in the playoffs after a disqualification and then went on to win his third championship.
Why did NASCAR finalize this playoff format?
To understand how NASCAR got here, we have to go back to 2003. That year, Matt Kenseth won the title with only one win, while Ryan Newman had eight and didn’t come close. NASCAR feared losing excitement and TV ratings, especially with a lucrative Nextel deal in play. In 2004, they introduced the Chase. Then came resets, wildcards, and eventually stage racing and the current “eliminator” bracket. All designed to deliver drama, but at what cost?
The playoffs were built for moments. Big ones. But they’ve often delivered controversy instead. Jeff Gordon in 2014 missed the final despite having the most points and the best average finish. In 2016, a crash and a late caution handed Jimmie Johnson a title with the lowest average finish for a champion. In 2023, Ryan Blaney won with just 8 top-fives and a 14.8 average finish, the worst for any modern title-winner. It also awards unwanted mediocrity. Remember how Austin Dillon made it to the playoffs by winning a rain-shortened race at Daytona in 2022.
It’s not just the veterans who are speaking up. Fans have grown restless, too. Every year, someone gets eliminated not because they weren’t good, but because they weren’t lucky. One crash, one rain delay, one loose wheel, and months of effort vanish. Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell, the two most consistent drivers, weren’t able to contend for the championship last year. That’s not how championships should work. Many longtime viewers feel alienated. They miss the days when excellence over 36 races mattered more than surviving a few.
This format was born in a TV boardroom, not a garage. NASCAR built it for viewers, not racers. Yes, it keeps things “interesting,” but it takes out the best competitors. It ignores the weekly war and, more importantly, dismisses the original vision that shaped NASCAR. In 1949, Bill France and Co. decided to frame rules and regulations to determine the national stock car champion. The current playoff format, however, leans more into chaos and theatrics. That might please a casual viewer flipping through channels, but it robs legends of the legacy they earn through the grind. It happened to Harvick. It could happen again this fall.
The post ‘One Bad Day, One Lost Legacy’: The Problem With NASCAR’s Playoffs appeared first on EssentiallySports.