ANOTHER NASCAR title was decided on Monday morning as Kyle Larson won the season finale’ in Phoenix to claim his maiden Cup Series crown.
As always with NASCAR, the final event was the culmination of the 10-race NASCAR playoffs that sees a field of contenders whittled down to the final four who go into the final race locked together, creating a winner-take-all scenario for the Cup title.
Remarkably, the key contenders finished 1-2-3-4 in the Phoenix race; Larson leading home title rivals Martin Truex, Chase Elliot and Denny Hamlin in the race and therefore, the championship.
NASCARs playoff model remains controversial for some and it’s certainly not without issue, but there’s no denying the level of intriguethat it creates.
What’s more, it completely eliminates the scenario that Supercars find themselves in this year which is Shane van Gisbergen more than a full event ahead in the title standings, and barring some kind of catastrophe in Sydney this weekend or next, likely to wrap up the title well before the final round.
Now this year that’s probably a good thing because few people I know care about the championship being decided at the Bathurst 1000 – but in a ‘regular’ season this year would see the Grand Finale’ be a total dead rubber.
Among a vast majority of the major sports, Motorsport is completely unique in that a long season doesn’t culminate in racing’s equivalent of the AFL Grand Final or the Super Bowl.
So, as is often the case at this point of the season, there’s always some chatter asking the question if Supercars could implement some form of playoffs to ensure that the title goes down to the wire each year.
It’s a good question, so lets have a think about it and our process starts with the calendar.
Industry chatter at the moment points to a 13-event calendar next year but the more important factor are the number of individual races, which, remember, as far as the championship goes are all counted separately.
Therefore while on paper 13 rounds doesn’t seem like enough to include a knockout-style playoffs, we need to remember that , depending on event formats, we’re really talking about a 34-36 race season which, ironically, is almost identical to NASCAR..
Most agree that Bathurst shouldn’t play a massive part in deciding the championship, so on that basis you’d use the standings following the Bathurst 1000 as the point where the top-10 ‘playoff’ contenders are sorted; and any wildcards you might throw in.
That then leaves what we expect to be three or potentially four events run in reasonably quick succession post-Bathurst to decide the title.
This year, before ‘rona wrought havoc on the calendar, only the Pukekohe event and the Gold Coast street fight were originallyscheduled for post-Bathurst, but it’s conceivable to see that at least one more will fit in to that window, leaving eight or nine races to battle out the championship.
That’s more than enough to build a form guide and establish a properly representative winner.
So you’d barrel through those races eliminating the drivers race by race until you rolled into the final round with, say, five drivers in contention.
Imagine, then, the Gold Coast event.
five drivers enter the Saturday race in contention for the championship, with two spots available to decide the title on the Sunday. The drama of ‘who’s in, who’s out?’ would be impressive, and that’s before you get what would unfold on the Sunday.
At a circuit famous for drama, it would be an explosive finale, for sure.
Imagine a team making a hail-mary decision to stay out under a Safety Car, gambling on fuel to make it to the end, or on rain to come. Or the ongoing risk of the guy or girl in the box seat trying to claim a championship smashing a kerb all too hard and breaking their car.
There’s no doubt it would be incredibly dramatic.
They key here, though, is to not make it overly complicated.
The NASCAR model works, but it isn’t the most simplistic way of going racing at the best of times.
A Supercars playoff system must be as easy to follow as the AFL or NRL elimination formats. Those who finish highest progress and the losers don’t – simple as that.
The other issue I have with the NASCAR system is that there’s a very good chance that the best driver all year could very easily be denied in the final hurdle.
It would have been pretty awkward for NASCAR had Kyle Larson, who had won nine times prior to the season finale’ at Phoenix, been denied a title because of a tyre failure or a lapped runner getting in the way.
Giving the championship leader some advantage heading into the final round should be an imperative – say, 40 points.
With 150 up for grabs to win, that margin would be more than enough to make them nervous about doing anything other than fishing in the top five – so they’d still race hard – but would give them just enough of a cushion as a reward for their efforts to ensure that if all turned to dog doo then they may still be able to resurrect something should they get home.
Finding the balance between ‘winner take all’, like NASCAR, and maintaining the integrity of a full-season campaign would be an important challenge.
Supercars have bigger issues on their plat at the moment than coming up with a playoffs system, but it’s a worth discussion for the sport to have as it looks to refine the business of making sure every single round counts.
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