Bob Pockrass
FOX NASCAR Insider
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Each of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers finished ahead of Joey Logano in the regular-season standings.
So to see Logano win the NASCAR Cup Series title after a one-win regular season had to hurt those who put together solid regular seasons but couldn’t match him at times during the 10-race playoffs and for sure Sunday in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
“Don’t get me started,” said four-time Cup champion and Hendrick Motorsports Vice Chairman Jeff Gordon, who won his four Cup titles under a traditional full-season points system.
Denny Hamlin, who finished seventh in the regular-season standings and still seeks his first Cup title, wasn’t touching the format topic as well.
“You guys will talk about all that stuff,” Hamlin said. “It’s a crazy scenario for sure. A wild ride.”
Those comments had nothing to do with Joey Logano. It’s about the topic debated over the last 20 years on whether a sport that in most series relies on a full-season points system should have a playoff style format to make it more in line with other sports.
In NASCAR’s elimination-style format introduced in 2014, no driver as low as 15th in the regular-season standings had even made it to the Championship 4, let alone win the Cup title.
But there was Joey Logano celebrating his third Cup title in this format. He won three of the 10 playoff races after a regular season where he needed a five-overtime finish at Nashville to get the win that earned him an automatic bid into the playoffs.
“For someone to say this isn’t real, it’s a bunch of bull**** in my opinion,” Logano said. “That’s wrong.”
FINAL LAPS: Joey Logano secures his third Cup Series title
NASCAR changed its playoff system in 2004 with the first “Chase,” a system where drivers who advanced to the playoffs would then be eligible for the title based on points earned over the final 10 races. That move came following a season in which Matt Kenseth won one race and wrapped up the title a race before the season finale.
After 10 years of the Chase, NASCAR moved to an elimination, knockout style format where three-race rounds determine the champion. A win by a driver still alive automatically qualifies the driver for the next round and the rest advance on points with a system that allows them to carry bonus points from round to round based on regular-season wins and performance.
Logano isn’t the first driver to feel the wrath of fans that he didn’t have a season worthy of a champion.
“The only reason why they don’t say this about other sports is because they didn’t change the playoff system,” Logano said. “But the playoff system in other sports is not much different than what this is.
“You can have a great regular season. It seeds you better for the playoffs. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to go all the way to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup Finals or the NBA Finals. It doesn’t matter. It might help you.”
For three consecutive years, Team Penske drivers (Logano in 2022, Ryan Blaney in 2023 and Logano again in 2024) have won the Cup title.
“This is something that everyone knows the rules when the season starts,” Logano said. “We figured out how to do it the best and figured out how to win. It’s what our team has been able to do for the last three years.
“So I don’t like people talking that way because if the rules were the old way, we would play it out differently, wouldn’t we?”
That valid point has teams scratching their heads on what Penske is doing to elevate its game so much in the playoffs.
With the Next Gen car, where NASCAR requires teams to buy most parts and pieces from single-sourced suppliers, teams can’t develop a piece and hold on to it for the playoffs.
And with the bonus points awarded for regular-season performance, a team wouldn’t risk not earning those points that could help them in the playoffs.
“We seem to do a really nice job through the offseason when we have time to really analyze all the data,” Jeff Gordon said. “Our drivers do a great job with it and the pit crew and we come out strong. You’ve got to maintain that throughout the year.
“I feel like we stepped up and did everything we could. But for whatever reason, those guys have a little bit more that they come with, especially here at Phoenix in this championship race. And it’s our job to go find and do the same.”
The Hendrick teams have been chasing the Penske teams at Phoenix in the fall for the last few years. The SMT data — data that shows throttle and braking — that teams have access to for all cars indicates that the Penske cars are stronger.
“It’s motivating,” Gordon said. “It will get us fired up. … You can see on SMT where their cars just turn a little bit better going to the throttle and they’re able to maintain that.”
Logano crew chief Paul Wolfe indicated the team is focused each week to run well and not solely focused on the final 10 events.
“Were we fast a lot of races this year?” Wolfe said. “No. But we executed to what the format is now, and that’s why we’re the champions. There’s a lot of cars that had speed early in the season that weren’t able to show up when it mattered, and whether that’s the pressure or what it is, I don’t know.
“But as a team, we want to run good every week. We [also] know when it’s time that you have to be your best and what it takes to prepare for that, and that’s what we’ve been able to do.”
The playoffs aren’t going anywhere. NASCAR officials made that quite clear during the NASCAR state of the sport news conference Friday.
“We’ll absolutely look at what form the playoffs take in the offseason,” NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Steve Phelps said. “You always learn, … but playoffs in and of itself, you cannot argue with the quality of racing that the playoffs have delivered.
“You can talk about the format if we do some different things, but absolutely we’re going to stick with it.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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