Drivers have approached NASCAR’s one-race, best-finisher-take-all championship format in a variety of ways.
One way that’s not successful: Treating it as a normal week.
“If you say it’s a normal week, it’s just a way to help you sleep because you can’t sleep,” said Joey Logano, who has won in this format three times.
Logano (the 2018, 2022 and 2024 champion) and Kyle Busch (2015, 2019) are the only drivers who have won multiple titles in the format, which debuted in 2014. After 12 seasons, NASCAR will likely abandon the concept of three elimination rounds to set up a one-race championship for a playoff system with at least three races (if not four or five) for its final round. There might even possibly be a return to the 10-race championship round.
Joey Logano admitted that it’s hard to sleep during NASCAR championship week.
Any decision on the format change will come after this weekend’s season finale Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, an end of a relatively short — but particularly stressful era — for NASCAR drivers.
Kevin Harvick won the first one-race championship in 2014 and immediately noticed the difference.
“You can’t treat it as a normal week,” Harvick said. “You have to treat it differently, knowing that the normal flow of your week is not the same. You have to do more media. You have to think about it.
“You’re going to think about it more because you know that it’s all on the line to be able to make sure you dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s.”
And the change in managing the week isn’t just in the preparation of a race car.
“The flow of your weekend will never match the flow of any of the rest of the races for the year because there’s [so much]. The sponsors wish to be there, household needs to be there,” Harvick mentioned. “There’s simply the promotion of the race, issues it’s important to do for NASCAR.
“There’s no manner which you could deal with it the identical. However you’ve obtained to have the ability to handle it.”
Kevin Harvick defined that it is arduous to not get overwhelmed when drivers are racing for the title.
And that’s the place they’ve completed it otherwise — from Denny Hamlin enjoying tennis as a launch to Harvick ensuring a plan was in place on how he wished to strategy issues.
“You needed to do your personal deal, and also you needed to not get so overwhelmed with what you would possibly must say to your opponent, or something like that [when doing media],” Harvick mentioned.
“And also you’ve obtained to have the ability to be in the best mindset going into the race understanding that you simply’re not going to have your regular operate of per week.”
Whereas actually not simple, Harvick mentioned attending to the championship is extra of a aid, as the motive force feels strain going by means of the three-race elimination rounds making an attempt to advance.
“The championship race itself was truly simpler due to the truth that you knew there was just one solution to win,” Harvick mentioned. “The arduous half — by no means doing it earlier than — was getting by means of the rounds.
“We needed to win [in the semifinal round at] Phoenix and received within the earlier rounds, and all of the issues that got here with that have been far more pressure-packed than the precise championship race.”
Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson mentioned his expertise was comparable. Within the 10-race championship format, the place he received six of his seven titles, each race had the championship strain.
When he made it to the one-race championship in 2016, he entered the season finale at Homestead. That was not one among his greatest tracks however he knew he wanted to win. Fortunately, he already had six Cup titles, so the strain maybe wasn’t as intense as it might have been if he was going for his first.
However even then, it wasn’t a typical week.
“You’ll be able to attempt [to make it that way],” Johnson mentioned. “And you could attempt as a result of the strain usually does not carry the perfect out of individuals, and the extra you’ll be able to simplify it, the higher the result.
In response to Jimmie Johnson, the strain of profitable all of it does not carry out the perfect in folks.
“I discovered that I may deal with strain very well. Beginning my Cup profession, I didn’t have that consciousness or confidence in myself, however as I saved experiencing new ranges of strain, we rose to the event.”
For Busch, the strategy was totally different relying on the 12 months.
When he made the Champ 4 in 2015, he had missed the primary 11 races due to a damaged proper leg and damaged left foot suffered in a crash within the Xfinity race at Daytona. So in comparison with a few of the different seasons, he didn’t enter that one with strain.
“In ’15, we have been enjoying with home cash, so I’d say it was simple. I used to be like, ‘Yeah, no matter we do right here, it is only a studying expertise. All people says we should not be right here anyway, so let’s simply take it and put it in our backpack and end this season out,’” Busch mentioned.
“And we ended up profitable the factor. However then ’17, us and [Martin] Truex have been the winningest groups of the 12 months, and it was aggravating, since you have been like, ‘Okay, how can we how can we beat these guys?’”
Sooner or later within the 2018 race, Busch was fourth among the many Champ 4 drivers operating first, second, third and fourth.
“It was all we may do to maintain up with the entrance three guys as they have been simply so good that day and simply put the whole lot collectively the way in which they wanted,” Busch mentioned.
Former champ Kyle Busch mentioned that he and his group have been enjoying with “home cash” after they received all of it in 2015.
The explanation that it appears the 4 finalists have been usually operating up entrance? These groups and drivers actually had motive to push each tolerance in tech, however additionally they obtained an enormous push from contained in the store.
“When you are functioning in a four-car group like that, as folks get eradicated, the assets, the perfect engines, the perfect vehicles and the whole lot begin to get cycled to the blokes which might be nonetheless in it,” Harvick mentioned.
“And, in that case [in 2014], it was a situation to the place we had the entire group to have the ability to deal with one automotive. And for those who wanted one thing constructed, or one thing modified, you had all of the assets from the entire firm as an alternative of 1 group.”
The store and the drivers all really feel the strain. Harvick mentioned everybody works on the vehicles a lot and everyone seems to be pitching in that the group bond turned stronger.
Drivers can see the buy-in from their organizations and know that a lot depends upon them in that second.
“The strain ratchets up each week and it impacts you, there’s little question,” Logano mentioned. “I’d assume it impacts everybody. I don’t see the way it doesn’t for those who care sufficient about it. If you happen to care, you’re going to be digging deep and looking for that little bit extra and what’s it going to take and all that.”
Logano mentioned he cannot envision any driver with the ability to undergo that one-race championship and making it really feel regular.
“It’s not a standard week,” Logano mentioned. “It’s the championship week. You’ve an opportunity of reaching your final objective. It’s type of arduous to deal with that like a standard week. … The info are you already know it inside. All people is aware of it inside.
“It’s larger. You’re nearer to reaching the dream. What are you keen to do?”
That’s to not say that every one the drivers will shed many tears that this format received’t return.
Harvick remembers fuming when then-NASCAR CEO Brian France instructed him concerning the one-race championship format that adopted three three-race elimination rounds.
“I used to be very jaded after we sat within the assembly with Brian France, and he sat there and instructed us that we have been going away from our format at the moment of a 10-race playoff to winner-takes-all sort situation,” Harvick mentioned.
And now?
“I do not suppose it is ever actually achieved what it was got down to obtain,” he mentioned.
It possibly didn’t create all of the Sport 7 moments as some had hoped or sparked an incremental elevated curiosity within the playoffs every year as had anticipated.
Nevertheless it examined each little bit of the motive force and the group.
“After the primary 12 months, there’s nothing higher than that strain going with the do-or-die moments when the group is all in as a result of seeing all people in that mindset and studying how one can race that manner underneath all of the strain, do-or-die, teaches you a large number about your folks,” Harvick mentioned.
“And with the ability to obtain issues underneath that strain may be very rewarding and virtually addicting.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent many years masking motorsports, together with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting Information, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seashore) Information-Journal. Comply with him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
