Larsons '21 season is why the playoffs should not be a thing. Imagine a driver dominates the entire season, then has a bad finale and doesn't win the championship.
The flaw in that logic is that with different rules, strategies are different too. I know it's a fun exercise to see the old points vs the current, but it's just that, a fun exercise. It doesn't consider all the variables that would make a difference. I mean, I never hear anybody talk about how under the old point system, Joey Logano would have 5 titles. I really wish they'd just use a full season format again. Keep this points system, but add another 5 points for winning the race and 3 bonus points for leading the most laps of a race. I believe we'd see some of the best battles we've ever seen and we'd see them consistently.
You can win 35 out of 36 races lead every single lap win every stage and then you go to the championship race and on lap one you blow a tire. You’re 4th in points you don’t win the championship you did all that for nothing ☠️
I don't think using a scenario that is unlikely to ever happen is a good argument. Also lets be real, under the old system if a driver wins 35 straight races, many would have stopped watching weeks ago. A season like that would suck and being boring.
@@user-zq1px9yb7gTruex scored more stage points in that season than anyone ever has in a season since stage points began. his 2017 season is one of the best ever
If we still had the old points format, Larson would win 21, Elliott 22, and Byron 23. As an HMS fan, it hurts to see only Larson win. Though I believe that Elliotts 2020 title should have been 2022 instead.
Looks like they've all been restored. Thank God, the most underrated nascar channel on RU-vid deserves more respect and I'd even honestly put you up there with the s1apshoes, icebergs, and bfm's of the world
The most egregious stat from Blaney last year is the fact that he had ZERO top 5 finishes between his Charlotte (May) and Talladega (October) wins. Truly a shame that he is considered a “champion” despite not even being a top 10 talent in cup.
2003 should count as a best championship bc while Kenseth won by over 300 points and 1 win he was just consistent and showed that you don't need to win in order to win a championship he was just straight up finishing and not making mistakes.
When Blaney won the championship, I was very disappointed. It wasn’t a bad season, it was just an average Blaney season. Byron had 6 wins that season. He looked unstoppable! (except for the summer lol) and was pretty consistent. He might not have a real championship, But at least he has a Winston title
@@dustinbeat4058 I’m starting to think you’re a Hendrick hater lol, He also had 15 top 5’s and 21 top 10’s. Probably one of those guys that say "Blaney actually deserved that championship" But we all truly know he didn’t.
@BraydenBunch58 I'm an Elliott fan. Bryon was right place right time that's it. Elliott didn't deserve his 2020 championship either but he won cuz he was the better driver in the last 10 races and Harvick chocked.. same with Blaney he was the best in last 10
I agree with everything you said the new system made it weird with championships but every driver knows the system I think all drivers deserve their titles they all play by Nascars rules
2014: Harvick deserved it and he got it. Many would argue Gordon or Keselowski or maybe even Logano I think any besides those four would’ve won the championship it would’ve been an issue 2015: should’ve been Harvick or Logano 2016: should’ve been Harvick or Logano 2017: well deserved for Truex 2018: should’ve been Harvick or Kyle Busch 2019: Kyle Busch deserved it 2020: Harvick didn’t even make the final four 🤦♂️ 2021: it was Larson’s year he deserved 2022: eh I say Logano deserved even though Elliott was great that year as well he kinda faded that last portion of the season 2023: Byron should’ve got it So only 5 out of the 10 years this format existed the deserving driver won the championship ☠️☠️
Kyle Larson's 2017 playoffs is still one of the biggest "what ifs". He blew up in the round of 12 eliminator despite being 30+ points ahead of the cutline going into the race. Then after being eliminated had a HORRIBLE round of 8. If not for Kansas I am almost certain Kyle Larson would have won his first Cup title in 2017. ESPECIALLY since the finale was at Homestead and he went out of his way to not interfere with the Busch v Truex battle despite having the best car of the three.
Truex’s 2006-2015 seasons did not give an accurate picture of what the latter half of his career would look like! Here’s hoping that Chris Buescher is on a similar rise after last year!
5 Best Championship Seasons: Dale Earnhardt (1987) Richard Petty (1967) Jimmie Johnson (2013) Martin Truex Jr. (2013) Kyle Busch (2019) 5 Worst Championship Seasons: Kevin Harvick (2014) Should've won: Jeff Gordon Chase Elliott (2020) Should've won: Kevin Harvick Jimmie Johnson (2007) Should've won: Jeff Gordon Tony Stewart (2011) Should've won: Carl Edwards Ryan Blaney (2023) Should've won: William Byron
2020 the only people to blame for harvick not winning the championship is the 4 team. Its their own fault that they became so inconsistent in the playoffs. The 9 took a page from jimmie and chads book, and hit on all cylinders when it mattered most. Between the round of 12 and the first 2 races of the round of 8 heading into martinsville harvick had an average finish of 11.8, and Elliott having an average finish of 10.8. now that doesn't sound like much till you look at their finishes in each of those races and where harvick was losing points to the rest of the playoff grid. Especially when you consider the fact that after bristol i wanna say harvick didnt get any stage wins and and didnt lead over 100 laps combined in the last 5 races.
The Best is easily 2017 Martin Truex Jr with how he was able to bring Furniture Row from being a back marker/midpack team into a championship team and Hot Take the most dominant championship run in the past 10 years yes I say it's more dominant than Kyle Larson's 10 wins did Truex win 10 races no but he was more consistent compared to Kyle Larsons 2021 and will forever go down as Martin Truex Jr crowning achievement congrats on your retirement Martin and go win yourself another championship this year or make the championship four.
Dale Sr 1987 Championship was probably his best. Richard Petty winning 26 races in one season was wild. He competed in a lot more races overall than they do now and the field was pretty weak in some of them. Would be more comparable to a driver running a full cup and Xfinity schedule and basically winning almost every Xfinity race because you’re just that much better than every other driver there. Kyle Busch has done this a few times in Xfinity and the truck series. Basically winning every time he entered one of the lower tier events.
To put a further point on Gordon's '98 title....Mark Martin would have won the title in ANY other year. This is really more of an indictment of how bad Martin's luck was. Have literally the 2nd best season anyone has ever had in the sane year someone else had the best season
I think one thing I'd say about the Elliott Championship is if you dive deeper into that season, He was much better than the results showed. He just had easily the worst luck imaginable most of that season. With Harvick actually winning a couple of the races he probably got screwed out of. The two drivers were alternated 1st and 2nd in a lot of stats that season too. I think it sucked Harvick wasn't in the Championship 4, but I do think realistically Elliott was right on Par with Harvick that season. It just seemed like the results came for Elliott until the end.
Nascar really needs just to ax the whole playoff gimmick! Keep stage racing, get rid of stage cautions, fix whatever the heck is going on with their officiating?! Good Lord! I've been a NASCAR fan for 35 years. They seem to actually be noticing independent social media channels like Estepp, Bologna Burger, Iceberg, Eliteprecision29, Jett, BFM, etc. I guarantee you that NASCAR has someone who is reading Bologna Burgers live chat, NWP live chat...NASCAR does seem to be making some changes in the positive direction! We, as fans, just need to keep doing what we are doing! Interact in these RU-vid chatrooms! Support small channels like this!
I can agree with the Elliott 2020 but it reminded me of some of Johnson champions. Be good all regular season then really turn it on at the right time. Elliott made up for it in 2022 though as he would have been the natural champion (Logano was still 2nd in points so not a bad champion) but that proved 2020 wasn’t a fluke at least.
I can agree on three of the five worst champions. Logano's 2022 and Kurt Busch's 2004 rank a bit lower than Kyle's 2015 and Chase's 2020 in my book. Best championships is where we disagree more. Johnson's '06 doesn't even hit the top 50 statistically. Truex and Larson are indeed the best of the 21st century, but they don't make the top 30, and Earnhardt's '94 isn't much higher. The actual top five purely from objective statistics are: 5. Cale Yarborough 1978 4. Cale Yarborough 1977 3. Richard Petty 1971 2. Richard Petty 1967 1. Tim Flock 1955
I didn't include anything from that era for best seeing as how backcthen there were like maybe 5 competitive cars on the track. Also i wasn't trying to do this from a statistical standpoint for the best Champions just rather circumstances
Gordon led 39 laps more than Larson best total, in 1995 when the season was 5 races shorter (31 to 36). For note, those final 5 races, Larson added 579 more laps to his total.
I argue Kenseth deserved to win both 2011 and 2015. Had it not been for Martinsville and Phoenix he could’ve brought home title #2 Also 2015 was just completely taken from him. Had he won at Kansas ignoring Talladega and Charlotte he could’ve been in the final 4. But because of Logano and Penske as a whole at Martinsville you could say he was knocked out.
I don't think that one is as egregious as many of the others solely down to the fact that Logano had the 2nd most amount of wins and was top 5 for almost the entire season
And if Gordon wasn’t so darn good in 1998, Mark would have won the title that year. He wins the 98 championship in most years with those stats, it’s just that Gordon was unstoppable
They literally cheated. That is not a bs penalty. If NASCAR would have penalized Gordon with points instead of fines in 95 for cheating twice, Earnhardt would have gotten his 8th. And he then could have went on to win his 9th in 2000 if some moron backmarkers wouldn't have wrecked in front of him at Bristol and took him out while leading.
