Should NASCAR Issue Playoff Waivers for Off-Track Injuries?

Chase Elliott stood NASCAR nation on its ear last week when it was revealed that he fractured his left leg in a snowboarding accident.

While accidents obviously do happen, it did ignite the age-old debate of what is expected of drivers during the season, and ultimately should NASCAR be in the business of issuing waivers for the playoffs when these types of incidents occur?

In this week’s installment of 2 Headed Monster, Vito Pugliese and Joy Tomlinson tackle the topic.

Hard Pass on the Hall Pass

With the Playoff/Chase formats of the past decade, missing races the first half of the season has a work around that simply wasn’t available in years prior.

With “win-and-you’re-in” being the name of the game, it permitted Kyle Busch the luxury of recovering for four months prior to his return in 2015. Granted, Busch was blessed with a waiver for suffering an injury during a NASCAR race – albeit a race in a lower-tier series.

Busch was also able to reel off four wins in the first five races once he returned, and despite missing the first 15 races, he found himself tied for the championship lead to start the 2015 playoffs.

Does any of this sound at all incongruent to be a crowned a season champion?

Before any KFB fans say GFY, that wasn’t an indictment of Kyle; he was simply playing by the rules and waivers issued by the sanctioning body. Chase Elliott ultimately will be as well. But is there a reason why we need to have a waiver in the first place?

Yeah, sometimes things happen, people get hurt, and you don’t win a title.

Can’t that be good enough?

I always bristle at comparisons to other sports, but that’s the path we chose when we went down the road of having a playoff to begin with. Let’s take a look at the NFL this past season.

Consider the case of Matthew Stafford, coming off a Super Bowl win a year prior, the Rams were naturally a solid pick to contend for back to back titles. Unfortunately, Stafford suffered season ending injuries, including a concussion and spinal cord contusion. Should the Rams have gotten a pass for a few games since they were essentially down their star driver?

Of course not, that’s ludicrous. So is also missing 25% of the season but still champion for 100% of it.

Before everyone gets all up in arms and readies a half-hearted retort in the comments section, this isn’t saying he should just bail on the season and not race the remainder of the year, or…