CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — It seems everyone except champion Joey Logano is eager to see to a change to the NASCAR playoff format.
How to fix it remains up for debate.
Logano won his third Cup Series championship earlier this month, re-igniting the conversation about whether the current playoff format is the best way to determine a worthy champion. Logano wound up winning four races this season, but only had 13 top 10 finishes in 37 races and clearly didn’t have one of the best cars over the course of the season.
Logano, it seemed, did just enough to get by.
He got his share of breaks, too, using what amounted to a Hail Mary win in Nashville — stretching his empty fuel tank through five overtimes — to qualify for the postseason. He was actually eliminated from playoff contention in the second round, only to be reinstated after a competitor’s car was ruled to be illegal.
Logano’s run to the title has left some drivers wanting to see the system altered, with suggestions ranging from minor tweaks to major changes.
“I think the message we are trying to send is: Make the regular season matter more,” said Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 car for Joe Gibbs Racing and a co-owner of the 23XI Racing team. He suggested increasing the bonus points a driver gets during the regular season.
“The (Christopher) Bells, (Kyle) Larsons, they deserve to have a really good buffer there to make it through the (playoff) rounds,” Hamlin said. “We’re in a sport where you can get caught up in so many wrecks and different things that can happen. … There are 26 (regular season) races and they are proving to be not that substantial to winning a championship and that’s not something you want.”
Hamlin suggested that over the past three years the Team Penske champions — Logano twice and Ryan Blaney once — “didn’t have to do much” during the regular season.
“And that’s probably not good,” Hamlin added.
