NASCAR Playoffs under fire: ‘Speed, talent, all that stuff just does not matter’

No race series sanctioning body is historically more heavy-handed in managing on-track competition than NASCAR. But its efforts to ensure that championships end with an exciting and satisfying conclusion have managed NASCAR right into a box.

The notion of a driver clinching a championship with one or more races remaining in the season displeased all three generations of the France family, who founded and have operated NASCAR since 1948. So too did those years when a driver pointed their way to a title through consistency when another competitor was clearly dominant or had a more impressive stat line. That resulted in the formation of the Chase for the Championship in 2004, which reset the points to zero for the top 10 (later 12) drivers for the final 10 races of the 36-race season.

The current NASCAR Playoffs format dates to 2017; 16 drivers are eligible for the 10-round championship, with the bottom four dropped after every three races. The driver with the best finish among the remaining four in the season finale is declared the year’s champion. The four eligible 2025 contenders at Phoenix International Raceway were William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, and ’21 Cup champion Kyle Larson.

NASCAR could argue that all three of its 2025 National championships played out in exciting fashion at Phoenix. But the resolution of the Xfinity Series and the top-tier Cup Series was far from satisfactory. Already under pressure from fans and competitors, NASCAR is expected to modify the Playoffs to mitigate the ‘all or nothing’ element of the final race that somehow didn’t produce a truly sour result until this year.

The Truck Series was the positive outlier of the 2025 championship weekend. Corey Heim crushed the field throughout the year, winning 11 of 24 races coming in to the finale. He led at Phoenix with two laps to go, only for the caution to fly for a crash, creating NASCAR Overtime – a two-lap dash to the flag. While most competitors stayed on track or pitted for two tyres, Heim’s crew mounted four and he restarted in 10th place. He vaulted up to second with an astonishing seven-wide move up the inside of Turn 1, then drove away from the field on another restart to win the race and a deserved title.

Connor Zilisch was similarly dominant this year in the Xfinity Series, with 10 wins. But at Phoenix, he ran second to Jesse Love, who was fourth in the regular season standings prior to the Playoffs reset with a lone win in the season opener at Daytona. Despite Zilich’s overwhelmingly superior season, Love is the 2025 Xfinity Series champion.

“You work all year long, you bust your ass for 33 weeks, and we just didn’t have it today,” said Zilisch, who between May and October tallied 18 consecutive top-five finishes. “Yeah, this one’s going to sting.” At least the 19-year-old phenomenon has the consolation prize of a full-time ride in the 2026 Cup Series with Trackhouse Racing.

Hamlin, the veteran at 44, still in search of his first Cup championship, was the driver to beat at Phoenix. He led 208 of the scheduled 312 laps from pole position and was comfortably leading Byron with three laps to go when Byron blew a tyre and brought out the caution. Like Heim in the Truck race, Hamlin was the only driver who took four tyres during the critical pitstop and he restarted 10th. Larson, the other remaining championship contender, took two tyres and lined up five places ahead. On the restart, Ryan Blaney drove to the race win, Larson moved up to third to take the championship, while Hamlin’s charge stalled in sixth place.
“We were 40sec from a championship,” lamented Hamlin, who dedicated his recent 60th Cup Series race win to his terminally ill father. “You work so hard. This sport can drive you absolutely crazy, because sometimes speed, talent… all that stuff just does not matter.”

“You work so hard. Speed, talent… all that stuff just does not matter”

Hamlin won a Cup Series best six races in 2025, while Byron, Briscoe and Larson each won three. “I’m speechless right now, trying to figure out how it all happened,” added Larson, whose second Cup crown came after a peerless 10-win 2021 campaign. “I don’t think any of us foresaw getting a championship in the fashion we did. We didn’t lead a lap today and somehow won. Nonetheless, we’re on the list two times and that’s something to be proud of.”

As the co-owner of 23XI Racing, Hamlin is also at the centre of the contentious legal case challenging NASCAR’s anti-competitive business practices. While a stream of unflattering communications were released into the public domain through court hearings, NASCAR and the contesting teams (23XI and Front Row Motorsports) were unable to come to terms during an October mediation session with US District judge Kenneth Bell, setting up a courthouse showdown to begin on December 1.

With that potential PR disaster looming, perhaps NASCAR is fortunate that attention has been diverted by the unsatisfactory resolution to this year’s Truck and Cup Series titles and the increasingly vocal call for yet another shake-up of the way it determines its champions.

Based in Indianapolis, John Oreovicz has been covering US racing for 33 years. He is author of the 2021 book Indy Split