Despite nine victories and accumulating the most points in the regular season, Kevin Harvick will not be one of the four drivers racing for the NASCAR Cup Series championship in the series’ season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
Harvick came up one spot short on the track of making the Championship four yesterday at Martinsville Speedway. It set off a firestorm of criticism on social media complaining about the Cup Series playoff system.
So today’s Daily Poll question is, do you think the Kevin Harvick should have got an automatic pass to the final four of the championship race for accumulating the most points before the playoffs?
Hey, top seeded teams get knocked out in the first rounds of playoffs all the time.
Yeah, Harvick had a great season, but you have to not make mistakes or get caught up in the mistakes or others, or else. Too bad.
And I think that the provisional system needs to go. You can’t get in when you had a bad day qualifying just because you did well a few races ago. This is like socialism, corruption and cronyism in racing, and goes all against what racing and competition is all about.
The regular season champion should be in the championship race. 4 or 5 what’s the difference. Don’t care for this format, should be points racing all season long.
Go back the way it was stage racing has ruined the sport.
Just a question, but wasn’t Truex penalized at some point during the Chase over the years for helping get a teammate in; if so shouldn’t Denny Hamlin be disqualified from the final 4 seeing Erik Jones did not pass him in the final 20 laps when he was clearly the faster car??
Also- I not sure the answer but I feel bad for Preece; it appears his team NEVER do a any moves to try improving his track position
who made the playoffs? Actually I can just look it up if I care. These are the rules Nascar made up to make racing more interesting or tv friendly to go up against football. So I have no issue with it blowing up in their face and making them look bad. When you take 3/4 of the season and diminish its importance in declaring the champion you may run into a situation like this. Quite frankly, I am surprised it hasnt been an issue before now. Has anyone ever taken the time to calculate who would be champion under the old system vs the new. Does it ever come up with the same winner? Personally I hope Harvick wins next weekend and the drivers in the championship have issues. That would really cause an outrage on twitter. Then again with the election tomorrow will anyone even notice a Nascar race this weekend Go Kevin Harvick
In response to all the people who say that top seeded teams get knocked out all the time in stick & ball sports, They don’t have to compete against ELIMINATED teams who have NOTHING to lose, I’m sorry I hate the point system, i hate stage racing, NASCAR has ruined Cup racing for me. thank God for NE Modifieds
Whether you agree or not, rules should be, well, rules! Harvick had a terrific season no doubt. But in the end, they did not get it done. (By the rules in place today). Plain and simple.
I like the stage racing. Racing for the extra points and restarts, has eliminated, in my opinion, a lot of those “taxi cab” scenarios, though they still exist in the long green runs between stages on the cookie cutters. But it appears to be less to me. Overall, IMO I think an improvement for on track action, less boredom. But I have no grounds to argue, that it does not reward season long consistency, as it does not, with respect to the old points system.
As for Preece, well, we have kicked that around for quite a while. No one argues, even among cup teams as it appears, that Ryan certainly has a boatload of talent. I watch cup fairly consistently, and it is a very rare instance, that when Ryan pits with leaders, he advances position. Usually drops 6-8 spots on average. Not sure if that’s a Ryan issue or team issue. In either case, the cup series goes to a 1 lug rule next year, to help equal the playing field in the pits among the better vs lesser pit teams, according to Nascar release last year. If indeed, Preece get’s to fight another day with JTG or another team in cup, hopefully, that helps. I wish him the best, IMO, he certainly deserves to be at that level.
At cup level? Agree the days of provisionals should be gone, as most all the teams have charters, insuring the bigger names get to race.
I’m not so sure yet, that I’d like to see provisionals go away on the tour or local series. I’d be bummed if Lutz, Coby, Bosignore et al; could not run because they had a mechanical mishap, or whatever, that kept them from making their qualifying, and it kept them out of the race as a result. JMO.
All the Martinsville races were pretty awesome this weekend, almost like short track racing is good or something. With that said someone like Harvick having one of the best seasons in cup ever and he misses the final four somehow, something is wrong with the system when you can dominate like he has and it’s not enough.
JGR definitely cheated somehow to keep Hamlin in, pretty similar thing as spingate in my opinion.
Call me old fashioned, but the person who wins the race gets the most points. The person who pulls together the best record of finishes over the season should be the champion. I have never cared for the Nascar playoffs.
The rules are the rules. He didn’t make it in according to those rules, so why should he be allowed into the chase? I also believe they should get rid of the playoff deal and go back to the original format. So what if a driver locks up the title with 5 races to go? More power to him.
No axe to grind with Harvick, just my opinion.
Someone brought up Truex being penalized. Chase Elliot’s jackman was early during a pit stop. Supposedly because he went back and touched the wall there was no penalty issued I don’t care if he went back and touched the wall 19 times the fact is he was early. Elliot only list 3 spots during that stop, he should have been penalized period end of story. The game playing between Jones and Hamlin should have had consequences too. There was 1 time when Jones had cleared Hamlin and backed out if it to let Hamlin back by. I hate this playoff format, and have hated it since day 1. The driver who earns the most points throughout the season should be champion, it’s the way all other racing championships are decided. If they are gonna stick with this system they should make it so the regular season champion gets to race for the championship. There are a couple of different ways to do it, but they need to change this screwed up system, especially with these multi car teams, who have the ability to control their drivers destiny ie Jones and Hamlin.
Bob Freeman contributed this gem, “The person who pulls together the best record of finishes over the season should be the champion.”
Well, NASCAR has been trying to figure out how to determine what the “best record of finishes” is for decades.
Apparently they are still looking into the JGR radio communications to see if there was any rules broken, some reports sound pretty damning especially when taking into consideration what the rule book actually says about it.
Bob, the next gen car and it’s one lug nut is 2022 now.
Preece has 8 top 20s in the last 9 races. He has gotten everything out of that car the last third of the season. The car and team are about a 20th place team at best. Preece is doing his job. Need faster cars.
Provisionals???? I’m not sure Cup had a full field all season.
The Daytona 500 had 42 cars try to qualify, 2 were sent home. Besides that I don’t recall them having more than 40 cars at any race, and I think most races it was 38. Like they always do NASCAR is routing that this next gen car, due in ’22, will lower the cost for teams to race in cup. It seems every time they introduce a rules package designed to lower costs and tighten up competition all that happens is the teams spend countless money and time figuring out how to counteract that rule, and the same thing will happen with this new car. Odds are that teams are already hard at work to make this new car faster.
Thanks JD.
I somehow confused that, thought it was 2021. I’m actually now a little disappointed, as I thought that may help Preece out next year.
Cup has NO Provisionals, only 40 Charters
One thing I noticed last night; Timmy Hill kept getting the lucky dog. You should only get the lucky dog once per race
Have you ever seen anything like this? Businesses boarding up. Police forces adding extra personnel. The National guard on standby. No, it’s not a hurricane, or a blizzard…it’s an election. Of We are better than this! Please people, don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution
Remember, although TV networks forecast winners, it takes days for every vote to be counted, it has for decades.
Be careful out there if you go to vote. Mask up, bring your hand sanitizer, socially distance yourself. It’s your right to vote, but you shouldn’t get sick by doing it.
Plain and simple, hell no! He lost his opportunity according to the rules as dictated by NASCAR. Go Chase Elliott………..
I understand NASCAR is reviewing the Jones Hamlin incident relative to radio chatter and could be releasing a statement soon that could change the landscape of the four drivers competing for the championship. We will see what happens.
I would be shocked if they removed a Toyota from the championship and let a Ford in. My guess is $100,000 fine and let’s forget about it. Especially with Denny just having brought Michael Jordon into the sport.
I think the fact that the best team overall for the season not getting to compete for the championship might be a good reason to get rid of the playoff system. Let he who has the most points win the championship. If you want to give the top 10 a points bonus before the end of the season so it comes down to a battle between them, let that be the “playoff”.
I do like the stages though; more racing in the middle of the race with more strategy options and more points available to the racers.
This reminds me of the popular vote vs. electoral college argument.
I’m not losing any sleep over Harvick’s elimination. But, the fact that, in addition to 7 regular season wins, he won 2 races during the playoffs(?) should have qualified him for the final 4. Perhaps more points should be awarded for playoff wins?
36 charters last 4 cars in on time, or by postmark of entry form.
I was pulling for Harvick since he was having such a great season. It will really suck to not win the championship after a season like that. But you still have to finish. The championship is awarded at the end, that is the format, everyone knows.
Just like they say about a race. Doesn’t matter how you run in the race, just that you lead the last lap. In order to do that, you had to get there.
Reminds me of the race between Silk and Szegedy, all Szegedy had to do was pace, but he just had to race and got himself wrecked and that handed the championship to Silk in a car that was junk after a bad accident. It was a miracle that they got the car running. Luckily there were plenty of cautions that allowed the 6 team to work on the car.
💩 happens. And that’s what makes it exciting.
It’s a darn shame Harvick isn’t in it but I agree with the others who have said rules are rules. And I’m not saying it’s easy to win a Cup race but he certainly had 3 opportunities (races) to win & clinch his spot in the championship race.
I used to criticize the Cup Series for it’s many changes but personally I’m starting to to really like all of it now.
Prefer the original point system by far. Harvick winning 9 events and not in the final 4 shows this current system is a joke. Harvick being out this year ranks right up there with the year Kyle Busch won it all after missing half the season. Following the current point system is too confusing to the casual fan. This is one of the numerous reasons why interest in NASCAR has gone downhill in recent years.
I’d be willing to bet, that if he had Kansas to do over, he would have dumped Kahani for the win, he had plenty of chances. Anyways, it over and done, I don’t see NASCAR taking any further action except maybe a fine for Gibbs if anything at all. Maybe even fining Harvick for intentionally dumping Kyle.
No penalty for JGR for the Jones Hamlin debacle. I am very disappointed with NASCAR on their stance to selectively enforce the rules they developed and have now set a precedent for future violations of this rule.
Elliot not getting penalized for his jackman over the wall early is a joke. No matter how many times the guy “reset” he still jumped early. So if the tire catches touches pit road while trying to catch a tire (penalty) if he lets go of the tire momentarily then catches it, he’s fine right. Total joke how they pick and choose when and how to enforce the rules.
Rob p, Jones was told on his radio not to pass Hamlin, he backed off and that violates the rule about altering the outcome of the race. Elliott’s jack man jumped early that is in the rules as well, however by resetting he complied with the rule, no violation.
The NASCAR official in Elliott’s pit witnessed the infraction and correction to avoid a penalty. Total BS call by NASCAR brass for the Jones/Hamlin incident that was a clear violation.
But that’s OK, the precedent has now been set and with team cars racing for a championship I guess it’s anything goes from blocking to radio chatter.
I am not a Harvick fan by any means, but I hope he blows the field away at Phoenix, laps the four “finaliststs”, and they all drop out by halfway, finish 37th through 40th, and the “champion” is the guy who finishes 37th, on the hook. NASCAR is the worst thing to happen to the true sport of auto racing in the history of racing.
getserious, you hit the bullseye. There are many promoters who do it much better than NASCAR. All they care about is getting paid. Look at some of these Dirt promoters, who are throwing $50,000 to win events almost weekly. Someone needs to figure out how to do that on asphalt.