Joey Logano’s championship win in Phoenix has led to a massive backlash against the current playoff format. With an average finish of seventeen, was Logano’s win justified as the best racer of the 2024 season? If you compare his run to that of either Kyle Larson or Christopher Bell, the arguments about the current format being flawed make sense. However, despite the constant bickering from the community, NASCAR is adamant that they will continue with the playoffs.

“You can talk about the format if we do some different things, but absolutely we’re going to stick with it,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s chief executive officer, said this ahead of the Phoenix race. So, on the one hand, you’ve got a stubborn governing council of NASCAR and, on the other, enraged fans who want to see consistent drivers be a part of the championship race. With the current order, you’ll only get more surprise winners like Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe, and Harrison Burton advancing to knockout rounds.

So is there a solution to this dilemma? Well, the thought of NASCAR being open to tweaking the current format ignites hopes. But what would the new format look like? Does the return of the Chase format make sense, and if yes, how would that work out with the knockout stages?

Chase vs the Playoff—which format is better?

Since its inception year in 2004, the Chase format rewards the most consistent race car drivers. From 2004-06, the chase or playoff as we know it today was made up of 10 drivers. This was changed to 12 drivers from the 2007 season. Here the drivers competing in the playoffs with the most amount of points in the 10 races would go on to win the championship.

But, in 2014, the elimination-style format was implemented, and the onus was now given to race winners. Be it the regular season or the playoffs, and since 2017, tweaks and changes have been made to this format with the addition of stage races and more. However, something is off when a star driver like Kyle Larson, who has multiple race wins, isn’t able to make it to the championship 4.

While the storylines are good for the sport, fans want to see the best drivers throughout the entire run battle for the championship. And this is where the fans were divided on Joey Logano’s championship win. Just like NASCAR fans, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi have polar opposite viewpoints on the current playoff format. Gluck leaned on a chase-style format, while Bianchi wanted a win, and you’re in element retained to the new system.

“This car is designed to keep everybody close; this car is designed for parity; why not just go back to the 10 race, the Chase as we knew it? Give maybe double the bonus points and playoff points so people have more to start with so they don’t. You only have 30 to start with, and then you’re gone in one round. So maybe you have like 70 to start with or something right for top guy.” Jeff Gluck said this while speaking on Teardown.

Although Bianchi was open to rewarding a change that rewards consistency, he wanted to retain the wins rewarding the drivers. “I’m not against it. If you reward drivers enough for winning, and I think that to me is a big thing where the one beauty of this format I really like it, rewards winning unlike anything else. I want to make sure that one rewarding wins is still there, and it’s still important, and that if it doesn’t work, we end up, you know, we’re going to this playoff format this year. Oh, we’re going to change it up.”

But how do the two formats and their strengths stand out, and how will it help NASCAR to make the tweak to the current system? Let us find out.

A mix of chase and elimination-style racing is what NASCAR needs

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We’ve seen the Chase format give us stories like Tony Stewart’s incredible comeback in 2011. He won the championship on a tiebreaker against Carl Edwards. It was an incredibly close points battle, and yet the winner was decided based on the number of wins. Stewart had five, while Edwards only had one win that season. Now you see multiple race winners do make a case for the return of the chase.

Making this argument, Gluck stated, “10 races is a long time. Tony Stewart did in 2011; you top your cap to them. You say, wow hey over 10 races, that was phenomenal. Like, I don’t think anybody would be going well. That’s a gimmicky, fluky kind of thing over 10 races and two and a half months.” On the flip side, winning certainly brought out the thriller races and storyline, especially in the playoffs. You had Tyler Reddick send it through on the last lap at Homestead and Ryan Blaney redeeming himself at Martinsville.

Perhaps NASCAR should chalk out the win, and you’re in to make the playoffs. But in the knockout round, a win should be able to help the driver advance, and such an idea would make sense to Bianchi too. “So like, if you could figure out a way and say, hey we’re gonna have this one through ten playoff format, okay. But I want to make sure you do it in a way where winning matters, where guys are going to be kind of put in fairly on the basis of winning.”

Seeing that the playoffs or the chase has undergone a number of tweaks, therefore there’s a potential for a new change ahead of 2025. It’s been eight years since the current model was implemented, and perhaps now is the time for something different.