When Joey Logano won the championship in 2024, NASCAR’s playoff system came into the spotlight. The Team Penske driver’s average finish was 17.1. He had just the 12th-most points scored this season — fewer than Chris Buescher, who didn’t even make the playoffs. He also ranked 11th in top-five finishes and 13th in top-10 finishes. These stats were hardly exemplary as a Cup Series champion, and demands to scrap the playoff format arose. So, a NASCAR broadcaster’s recent defence of the system was far from popular.
From veterans like Denny Hamlin and Aric Almirola to a vast swathe of diehard fans, members of the racing community were enraged. The source of this frustration was a particular post in the long string of updates that Mamba Smith made on X. Now, another NASCAR insider dissected his controversial views.
Losing sight of NASCAR’s vision
Since its inception in 1949, NASCAR’s goal has been solid – to allow the best racers to try their luck in a rewarding platform. Until 2003, drivers battled each other throughout the season to determine who was the finest stock car racer by the end of the year. Yet NASCAR’s present playoff system disregards drivers’ consistency through the regular season. They are thrown into a cutthroat competition through 16 races rife with elimination. That is what Fox broadcaster Mamba Smith vehemently defended after Saturday’s Cook Out 400 race. But one of his X posts did not use the best words: “The point isn’t to crown the best driver… It’s to crown the best team who executed the best when the pressure was at its highest and the lights were the brightest.”
Well, considering the grueling 36-weekend routine of every NASCAR Cup Series driver to survive a season, this post did not receive warm responses. Fans and drivers alike were enraged about Smith’s going overboard to defend the playoffs, including Freddie Kraft. Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 spotter said in a ‘Door, Bumper, Clear’ episode: “Mamba had a moment of poor decision-making, maybe, at this point. You never wanna say that the point is not to crown the best driver. He’s up to like a million views on this thing, I didn’t see many people agreeing with him…The words that he started with, ‘it’s not to crown the best driver,’ turned everybody off immediately.”
AVONDALE, AZ – NOVEMBER 06: Cole Custer 41 Stewart Haas Racing HaasTooling.com Ford and Kyle Busch 18 Joe Gibbs Racing M&M’s Thank You Fans Toyota race side by side during the NASCAR, Motorsport, USA Cup Series Championship Race on November 6, 2022, at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. Photo by Kevin Abele/Icon Sportswire AUTO
Bob Pockrass, a renowned NASCAR journalist, also refuted Mamba Smith’s claims. He highlighted the weakness of the current format, “In the system…you can in the playoffs, beat somebody else for nine straight weeks, and perform when the pressure is at its highest and the lights are the brightest for nine weeks. And then one week, not beat them and not be the champion.”
Portraying his personal opinion, Pockrass advocated for a reduced playoff format. That would give some breathing room to drivers like Kyle Larson or Denny Hamlin. who have year-long consistency but usually falter in the postseason. “I do like a chase playoff type system. I do like some sort of elimination…16 is a lot…I wouldn’t mind like 16, and then after 5 races, maybe cut it to 10. And then after two more, cut it to four or five. I think you need at least three final rounds.”
While this online battle rages on, Cup Series drivers are busy in this format anyway. One of them feels particularly good about his chances.
Will this finally be the year?
For eight full-time seasons, William Byron has been pursuing a championship. This season, however, the Hendrick Motorsports driver finally seems to be in line for the jackpot. He faced a miserable stretch in June-July, registering all three of his DNFs in that period. That is how Byron briefly lost the first rank to teammate Chase Elliott after a disaster in Dover. However, the No. 24 Chevy driver rebounded with immense energy, clinching his season’s second victory in Iowa. Byron clinched a top five in Watkins Glen and finished 12th at Richmond Raceway. The last race witnessed Elliott encountering a DNF, and that automatically catapulted Byron to the regular season title with one race left.
Having two victories, 9 top fives, and 13 top tens in hand, William Byron feels confident about his title chances in 2025. He said in the media availability in Richmond: “This year we’re coming in (to the playoffs), I feel like we’re in rhythm, in sync. I feel like it’s better this way, honestly…The years we’ve been on the other side, it’s a lot of questions, a lot of doubt, sort of that things are going to work out. I feel like now we’ve been kind of through the wringer of a lot of different things this year. Every race has kind of been different in terms of what we fight. There’s been some easier races with speed.”
Hence, William Byron is looking to ace the NASCAR playoffs, controversy or not. The debate may not end until NASCAR tweaks the system, so we can only wait and watch.
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