NASCAR’s Controversial System Causes Strange Phenomenon Leaving Insider Baffled

Around the globe, NASCAR is known for many things, but having an uncomplicated point-scoring system is not one of them. In every other motorsport series around the world, points are awarded on the basis of your finishing position in the race on Sunday. Well, NASCAR does things a little differently. Here, points are awarded three times in a single race, and unlike the other series, there are two kinds of points- normal points and playoff points.

NASCAR awards every stage winner 10 points, with one point less for each position till the 10th place, where you get 1 point. For the final race, the winner gets 40 points, 2nd place gets 35 points, and one point less all the way to 36th, who gets 1 point. Well, then what about the playoff points, you may ask. Playoff points are additional points that are awarded to the drivers throughout the weekend and can be instrumental during the playoffs.

Imagine, working day and night, putting everything on the line, winning race after race in a season, winning more than anyone on the track, but when you take a look at the points table, you are not at the top of the points table. This is all due to NASCAR’s convoluted points system that has been causing quite an uproar recently.

Victory vs Points: The Numbers Game

The current NASCAR points system is like a double-edged sword, it encourages the drivers to perform better throughout the weekend, but it can also lead to situations where the winning driver is not the one on the top of the points table. Just like with Christopher Bell. 

Bell made history last weekend as he became the first driver to win three consecutive races in the NextGen era. But even after this impressive streak of race wins, Bell found himself in a very peculiar situation, in second place in the points table, after winning 3 out of the 4 races. William Byron, who has just won one race, is on top of the points table. How is that possible, you may ask. Well, it’s all due to the stage points.

Jeff Gluck, a veteran NASCAR reporter, recently tweeted about this complicated situation and voiced the concern that is on everyone’s mind, “Christopher Bell: Best average finish, wins three of first four races. Also Christopher Bell: NOT the points leader (Byron is) 🤔”

If we take a look at the points table just for the stage race points, Byron is in the first position with 49 points, whereas Bell is in 7th position with just 26 points, this difference of 23 stage points is what’s the cause of Bell being second in the points table with Byron in 1st position. Although both drivers have one stage win each, the HMS driver has better finishes on compared to Bell overall and that reflects on the numbers.

Fans and insiders all have expressed their concern over the current points system, with NASCAR legend, Richard Petty, even saying, “Forget the points, let the winners run for the Championships”, which is a controversial take on the points system, hinting at a ‘win-and-you-are-in’ type system. Now we all know how wound up everyone was last year when Joey Logano won the championship despite not being in the picture in the regular season.

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Stage racing and NASCAR playoffs are here to stay

Joey Logano was nowhere in the picture to be one of the favorites to win the championship last year. He barely made it to the playoffs thanks to the caution fest at Nashville Superspeedway. He caught a lucky break at Charlotte Roval after Alex Bowman was disqualified and he advanced to the Round of 8. A win at Vegas and a solid outing at Phoenix was all he needed to write his wrongs of 2024. Kyle Larson who won five races throughout the season and a similar case can be made for Christopher Bell.

The outrage was huge, fans even claimed that Logano was an undeserving champion. But again he was only playing the game set by NASCAR in the first place. Although there were demands to change the playoff format, the sanctioning body is going to carry with the current formula, despite being controversial.

“The playoffs were meant to create those moments, which I feel like they did. And on the other hand, there’s the fan feedback — which we hear loud and clear — on this particular driver should have been here, or that particular driver won this many races, so he should have been automatically in and all of that. We just didn’t get to a point where we felt like we have to do it. But we hear the fans loud and clear and are looking at it actively.” NASCAR’s chief racing development officer, John Probst said.

Well-stage racing has also led to major ramifications on championship hopes. We saw Kyle Larson lose out on the regular season championship by a single point. Despite performing well throughout the 26 races, he couldn’t hit his strides in the clutch moment. Had he bagged those extra 15 playoff bonus points he could’ve made it to the championship race. But, as fate had it a tire trouble in Homestead Miami would prove detrimental to his title hopes, even a P3 finish in Martinsville wasn’t enough to see him through to Phoenix.

So if NASCAR is open to tweaking the playoff format, they might as well start by doing something about stage racing. And reward the consistently performing drivers in the regular season.