There is a time for every little thing, together with NASCAR lastly making a change to a championship format that has solely drawn extra disdain with each passing yr.
NASCAR’s present elimination-style playoff format is supposed to reward successful. It is meant to reward the most effective drivers shining when the lights are brightest.
However motorsports are inherently totally different than stick and ball sports activities, and a NASCAR season performs out over 9 months of grueling competitors. Within the present playoff format, the drivers and groups who’ve been the most effective over your complete season are seldom rewarded.
That is what occurred to NASCAR Xfinity Sequence driver Connor Zilisch in Saturday’s Xfinity Sequence championship race at Phoenix Raceway. Zilisch, a 19-year-old phenom, can be full-time within the Cup Sequence in 2026, received 10 races, scored 20 top-five finishes and led 1,013 laps regardless of lacking a race. Over the ultimate 21 races of the season, Zilisch completed prime 10 20 instances, together with a stretch of 18 consecutive top-five finishes.
However in a format the place the championship is set amongst 4 drivers in a single race, Zilisch completed second within the title hunt to Jesse Love, who handed Zilisch with 24 laps to go and went on to win the race and the title. It was a formidable drive by Love and one which was legendary given the circumstances. However it should not have determined the championship in a yr the place Zilisch was leagues higher than the competitors.
All indicators level to NASCAR making main adjustments to its championship format subsequent season, making Zilisch’s heartbreaking loss on Saturday seemingly the ultimate indictment of a playoff format that by no means match the type of NASCAR racing.
Connor Zilisch not upset about championship outcome
“I’m nonetheless so happy with my staff, what we’ve achieved this yr,” Zilisch mentioned in a post-race information convention. “We now have nothing to hold our heads about. We had been the most effective automotive for two-thirds of the yr. We dominated till these final three races.
“We’ll preserve our heads excessive. We’re strolling residence with greater than 3 times as many trophies as anyone else. We received essentially the most races, had essentially the most prime 10s, prime 5s, poles. There’s no purpose we ought to be upset due to this end result.”
Zilisch and the No. 88 staff is probably not upset — no less than not publicly — about shedding the title, however their feelings do not change the truth that Zilisch was far and away the most effective driver in Xfinity Sequence competitors this season.
That is to not take something away from Love and the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing group, who’re deserving champions. They received the title by the principles and did so with a formidable surge within the closing laps of the season. However in a yr the place Zilisch decimated the sector as badly as he did, seeing a special driver stroll away with the championship trophy is not the most effective search for NASCAR and its championship format.
“To be fairly sincere, on the finish of the day he (Zilisch) received, I don’t know what number of, 11 races, 12, one thing like that,” mentioned Danny Stockman, Love’s crew chief. “However when it mattered tonight, it didn’t occur. He received loads of races, however he’s not an Xfinity Sequence champion.”
Quotes supplied by NASCAR Media.
