NASCAR’s Champions are Worthy; the Championship System Is Anything But

Maybe he shouldn’t have won, but he did. And with his win Sunday (Nov. 10) at Phoenix Raceway, Joey Logano is the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion.

It’s Logano’s third career Cup title and with it, he adds his name to a short list of elite drivers. If Logano wasn’t already a Hall of Fame lock—and he was—this feat would seal the deal.

But did he deserve it?

That’s a pretty broad question.

Statistically, he had a fairly average season for the Next Gen era. It can be argued that based on the numbers, Logano had the worst season of any Cup champion since 1975. (Why 1975? That’s when the Latford points system came into play. Before that, the system changed often and races didn’t pay equal points.)

Logano’s seven top-five finishes, 13 top 10s and 17.1 average are all the worst of any driver in the last 50 seasons. Several drivers have won titles with fewer wins and Logano isn’t at the bottom in laps led or DNFs.

For the record, Matt Kenseth (2003) has both the fewest wins (one) and fewest laps led (354) of any champion since 1975. Darrell Waltrip’s eight DNFs are the most of any driver during the same time frame.

Champions with two wins 1975-2024: Terry Labonte (1982), Alan Kulwicki (1992), Labonte (1996)

Champions with three wins: Waltrip (1985), Tony Stewart (2002), Kurt Busch (2004), Logano (2018), Ryan Blaney (2022). 

In addition, Dale Earnhardt (1991, 1994), Dale Jarrett (1999) and Bobby Labonte (2000) won titles on the back of four race wins, as Logano did this year.

Only Kyle Larson had more wins than Logano this year. 

Three of Logano’s victories came during the playoffs, which isn’t terribly unusual, and it also hasn’t been particularly unusual for a driver in the playoff era (2014 on) to win three or more times in the postseason and not win the title. It’s happened four times (Logano ’15, Kyle Busch ’17, Martin Truex Jr. ’18 and Chase Elliott ’19).

What Logano’s 2024 title exposes is not a weakness in Logano but the weaknesses in the championship system itself.

Many point to Logano’s 17.1 average finish as reasoning for him not being deserving of the championship (more on that later), and it is an anomaly, but it also reveals an unsavory trend.

Since 1975, there are three distinct championship systems. There have been tweaks within those, but in general, champions were decided based on full-season points from 1975-2003. The 10-race Chase system…