All through NASCAR historical past, the champions of the game have all the time been in a position to level to a statistic or two that made the distinction on their path to the championship.
For drivers akin to Lee Petty and Matt Kenseth, common end and top-10 finishes paved the way in which for a quiet, but constant journey to the championship stage.
For others, akin to Kyle Larson in 2021, it was dominance within the types of race wins and laps led.
Enter stage left, Joey Logano, who led the 2024 NASCAR Cup Sequence discipline in precisely zero main statistical classes.
Logano’s common end? 17.1, the worst of any Cup Sequence champion over 75 years of competitors. He completed high 10 in simply 36.1% of races and led simply 414 laps — numbers that, even in earlier years, weren’t championship caliber.
Enter stage proper, the NASCAR playoffs, the catalyst and mastermind behind Logano’s miracle run to a 3rd NASCAR title.
It was via the playoffs and the playoffs alone that Logano even had an opportunity to compete for the championship after a fuel-mileage win at Nashville. It was by way of Alex Bowman’s disqualification following the race on the Charlotte Roval that afforded him a berth within the Spherical of 8. And it was one other fuel-mileage victory at Las Vegas that gave him each a Championship 4 berth and two additional weeks to arrange for the ultimate race at Phoenix.
And sure, when the laps mattered probably the most, it was Logano who etched his identify in historical past as a three-time NASCAR Cup Sequence champion.
However make no mistake about it: Logano’s three championships usually are not the identical three championships received by David Pearson, Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart or Cale Yarborough.
The next phrases aren’t meant to be an indictment of Logano, who merely adopted the foundations, however an indictment of NASCAR’s playoff system, which has simply topped — from a statistical standpoint, at the least — the worst champion in NASCAR Cup Sequence historical past.
The definition of a championship-caliber season has been fully misplaced.
Decimated. Disintegrated. Destroyed. No matter adjective you need to use, the idea stays clear: NASCAR can now not determine what a championship-caliber driver is.
A six-win season from Kyle Larson? Not ok. A 12 months from Christopher Bell the place he had extra top-five finishes (15) than Logano had high 10s (13)? Not ok.
It was Larson who led over 4 occasions the laps that Logano did and Chase Elliott who ended the 12 months with a median end practically 5.5 positions higher than that of Logano. It was a fellow Championship 4 driver in William Byron who completed inside the highest three 11 occasions, simply two occasions fewer than Logano completed inside the highest 10.
However on Sunday afternoon, it wasn’t Elliott, Bell, Byron or Larson hoisting the Invoice France Cup.
Lengthy gone are the times of the basic Winston Cup season-long factors format — through which Logano would’ve completed eleventh, by the way in which — deciding the champion over 36 races. Gone are the times of the 10-race chase, through which, as soon as once more, factors accumulation determined the champion.
Fashionable championships are received as a result of drivers and groups received the races they needed to.
Credit score ought to be given to Logano and the No. 22 workforce for being opportunistic, however his third title might develop into a watershed second for NASCAR — and never an excellent one.
If a below-average season is nice sufficient to win a championship, the definition of a championship-caliber NASCAR season is as clear as mud.
Congratulations, Joey Logano: You’ve efficiently torn the NASCAR playoff format to shreds.
