Last Playoffs Ever Sure Haven’t Been Boring

1. This Will Go Down as the Year of the Big Calls (By NASCAR)

When the NASCAR Cup Series championship race takes place this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, there’s a 50% chance that the driver who claims the season crown will be wearing it due to a decision by the sport’s governing body.

Notice I didn’t say “only” there, because that would be disrespectful to what Joey Logano and William Byron have done this season. Both have three wins on the year, as many as anyone not named Kyle Larson, so it’s not like they were driving around in the midpack for months.

But the fact remains that Logano would have fallen short of the Round of 8 if not for a penalty to Alex Bowman at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. While Hendrick Motorsports came out on the short end of that decision, it sure didn’t at Martinsville Speedway, which is why Byron will race for a championship and Christopher Bell will not.

There aren’t too many similarities between the rulings that cost Bowman and Bell. One was an equipment issue while the other centered on an on-track move. Yet neither was clear cut and the decision to disqualify Bell for wall-riding was absolutely a judgment call on NASCAR’s part.

If Ryan Blaney or Tyler Reddick end up winning at Phoenix, it’s something of a “no harm, no foul” situation. Still, it’s hard to imagine that 2024 won’t always be remembered as the season when NASCAR intervened to directly shape the direction of the last two rounds of the playoffs, for better or for worse.

2. It Could Also Be the Last Playoffs Ever (But Probably Not)

The other aspect of the storm of questionable penalty calls over the past few weeks (and we didn’t even talk about the potential Chevrolet team orders deal at Martinsville that benefited Byron) is that it might be the gift that fans who have been praying for the downfall of the playoffs have been seeking.

Brad Keselowski, for one, thinks so.

To be clear, it doesn’t seem likely that some grumbling from fans would cause NASCAR to completely reconsider the way it decides a champion, or else the playoffs never would have lasted even this long.

How about from the teams and drivers? Uh, no, not with the way NASCAR has been flexing its muscle over all of them with the charter situation.

Let’s assume, though, just for a minute, that NASCAR was already leaning toward looking at ending the playoffs. It’s more believable to think that it could decide this whole…