NASCAR got the season-ending “Game 7 Moment” it has been chasing since instituting the Playoffs points system in 2004 last weekend, and fans are pretty pissed off about it. The 2024 Cup Series champion, Joey Logano, secured his third title with the worst average season-long finishing position in NASCAR history. Across the full season Logano finished in an average position of 17.1, securing just four race victories (plus an All-Star Race win). It was a come-from-behind victory that saw him win when it truly mattered, and that’s exactly the kind of story NASCAR values in its champions.
It’s hard to call Team Penske an underdog, especially when they get caught with cheaty webbed gloves, but isn’t that the kind of thing you hope to see? What more could you want from a racing series than a champion who found his footing as the season went on and then all but swept the post-season championship games? This was cool to watch, and I think you’re just a whiner if you disagree. I would like to issue an unequivocal congratulations to three-time champ Joey Logano, he deserved it. He’d have had a higher finishing average if he hadn’t been dumped by dickhead Austin Dillon at Richmond, too, but that’s not a fight y’all want to have right now.
“To your point about championships and what it is, the only reason why they don’t say this about other sports is because they didn’t change the playoff system,” said Logano. “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. It’s the same way in NASCAR, the way we have the rules now, is that you set yourself up much better.”
NASCAR has been trying to get late-season heat baked into its championships for two decades, more or less copying what stick and ball sports have done. The regular season doesn’t really matter once you enter the playoffs, as your in-season points reset, though you get bonuses and automatic entries for race wins, kind of like how a winning football team would get a better championship seed. Logano’s win at Nashville in June got him into the Round of 16, his Las Vegas and Atlanta wins during the playoffs got him enough points to enter the championship 4.
“They have the same opportunity to go out there and win and move on to the next round,” continued the champ. “So for someone to say this isn’t real, it’s a bunch of bullshit in my opinion. That’s wrong. This is something that everyone knows the rules when the season starts. 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.”
The championship went down to the wire, and winning the Championship Race at Phoenix last weekend was exactly what Logano needed to do to get his trophy. Championship contenders William Byron, Ryan Blaney, and Tyler Reddick all finished in the top six at Phoenix, and the championship would have gone to whichever of them finished on top.
“…People that just got to accept what the times are,” concluded Logano. “Times change, right? And I don’t know if you have a lot of the moments that we have today without the playoff system that we have. Do you want to see the championship crown with three races to go? Because that’s what used to happen. That’s pretty boring. You’ve got do-or-die moments. You’ve got the pressure. You’ve got all these things going on the last 10 weeks. You have guys trying to get into the playoffs.
“You have that storyline. How many storylines could we make? It’s amazing. For people to complain, it makes me mad. It makes me frustrated to hear that. Gosh, it is awesome. I watch the Xfinity Series and Truck Series, and it’s hard for me to talk about the Cup Series because I’m in it, but I watch those as a fan, whether it’s from the booth or just on TV, like I did last night. That’s entertaining stuff. I’m glued to my TV, especially a lot more during the playoffs than I am during the regular season. What’s wrong with that? Golly, man. I don’t know. Makes me mad, sorry. I’m not sorry.”
“I’ve got a pretty sweet trophy right now. I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.”
NASCAR fans, are you not entertained?