Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
MotoGP has started its final leg of the season, and the championship remained tight at the top, though it has dwindled to the final two rides standing. One category had its champion sealed in Sepang. James Hinchcliffe is going to run some endurance races. Brendon Hartley and Colton Herta will be third drivers for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport. Zak Brown showed off his toys at Sonoma. Colin Braun is going back to LMP2 competition. Las Vegas is preparing for Formula One. However, there was a recent championship decider that was on my mind.
Did NASCAR Really Have a Problem?
I was really thinking about this last week after Ryan Blaney's NASCAR Cup championship and looking over the numbers, some of which we already covered.
It wasn't a brilliant season by any means. There were three victories, but only eight top five finishes. Blaney went the entire summer, and then some, without a top five finish. He won races at the right time though and ended up the best of four drivers on one given Phoenix afternoon. It is the recipe to a championship in contemporary NASCAR.
Should that be the recipe to a title though?
Looking at past seasons and how we got here, I noticed it might not have been as bad as we thought 20 years ago.
When NASCAR adopted a playoff-style championship, it was in an effort to have more competitive championship battles that went to the final race of the season. However, NASCAR had that more times than not prior to 2004.
When the points system NASCAR administrator Bob Latford devised ahead of the 1975 was adopted, it was the first time NASCAR had a uniform points system no matter the length of the race or the size of the track. Prior to that, NASCAR had weird championship situations due 500-mile races at larger tracks being worth more compared to a 500-lap race on a half-mile. All races were now weighed equally with a full season aggregate deciding who would be champion.
After the 2003 season, it was led to believe there was a flaw to this system, mostly because Matt Kenseth won the championship with a race to spare despite having only one race victory, which occurred in the third race of that 36-race season. Kenseth won the championship through consistency. Beyond the race victory, he had 11 top five finishes, less than a third of the races, while he had 25 top ten finishes, but of the 29 champions between 1975 and 2003, that was the sixth-lowest top ten finish percentage.
Kenseth's 354 laps led were the fewest for a champion during that span, and the fewest for a champion in NASCAR's modern era (since 1972). Three of the four champions from 2000 to 2003 had the fewest laps led among those 29 championship seasons, Kenseth's 354 laps led were the fourth fewest all-time for a Cup champion ahead of only Rex White in 1960 (340 laps led) and the first two Cup champions, Red Byron in 1949 (118 laps led) and Bill Rexford in 1950 (98 laps led).
Kenseth's 2003 season was good, but not earth-shattering, not something that really left anyone impressive, but it was good enough to win the championship, but that was the recipe then. The hope was the new system would force drivers to race for more victories and attempt to do more than settle for seventh or eighth-place finishes.
The hope was drivers would be going for more race victories, but this was ultimately a decision to change how the champion was decided and effectively making sure the championship would be decided in the final race of the season.
However, that wasn't a problem for NASCAR.
As much as you may think the championship rarely went to the finale prior to the adoption of the "Chase for the Nextel Cup" in 2004, that wasn't the case.
In the 29 seasons with an aggregate champion under the Latford points system, 17 of those seasons had the championship undecided entering the season finale.
The first four seasons with the Latford points system were decided early, three were monstrous championship margins, but for 16 of the next 19 seasons, the championship went to the finale. Not all of those were climactic finals. Some were where one driver had a healthy lead and just had to avoid a nightmare of a race to ensure himself the trophy. Some were close. In eight of those 16 seasons, the margin between the championship leader and second entering the finale was less than 50 points. In six of those 16 seasons, at least three drivers had a chance at the championship.
This might be the one thing that surprises you when reading all this. Only once did the championship lead change in the season finale during this entire 29-year period. That was Alan Kulwicki's famous championship in 1992 after Davey Allison was caught in an accident and Kulwicki led one more lap than race winner Bill Elliott to claim the title.
What led to this championship format change? In retrospect, the answer is probably more than Kenseth's season but when Kenseth's season occurred.
From 1979 to 1997, the championship went to the finale 16 times, but from 1998 to 2003 was a strong shift in championship outcomes.
The only season in that six-year stretch not decided early was the 2002 season. Kenseth's season occurred at the end of a dominant stretch. Jeff Gordon had a historic 1998 season. Dale Jarrett had a great season and had more top ten finishes in 1999 than Gordon had in 1998. Bobby Labonte won with a solid season as did Gordon again in 2001.
Kenseth's 2003 season was the final straw during a period when NASCAR was expanding, more money was coming in and the fear was the champion could be diminished he was not a regular winner.
If 2003 wasn't the fifth time in six years the title was decided early, who knows what 2004 was going to look like, but NASCAR made a change hoping to earn legitimacy from causal sports fans that the best driver, the driver that won the most, was champion. It wanted the recipe for what it took to change. Here we are, 20 years later, and it doesn't feel like the combinations of ingredients are still not leaving us with a satisfying Cup champion.
NASCAR didn't really have a problem with the championship going to the final race. It was fine. The years 1998 to 2003 might have been a market correction for the prior 19 years, but without this system the next 20 years likely level out. But in this effort to ensure the title goes to the final race, but more specifically to the final lap of the final race, NASCAR lost sight of what it was trying to do 20 years ago. It is no longer about what it takes for a driver to be champion. This is no longer about making sure the best driver is more likely to win but making it so the champion is a complete unknown until the last possible moment. NASCAR has lost the plot. It doesn't seem to notice.
It has made it so the championship will go to the final race, giving a viewer a reason to watch all 36 Cup races from February to November, but in no way has the system rectified the concerns from 2003 and what it takes to be the champion still feels questionable.
Champions From the Weekend
Pedro Acosta clinched the Moto2 world championship with a second-place finish in Malaysia.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Pedro Acosta, but did you know...
Enea Bastianini won MotoGP's Malaysian Grand Prix, his first victory of the season. Álex Márquez won the sprint race, his second sprint victory of the season. Fermín Aldeguer won the Moto2 race, his third victory of the season. Collin Veijer won the Moto3 race, his first career victory
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One's long-anticipated Las Vegas return.
MotoGP makes it to Qatar.
Macau hosts some races.
The World Rally Championship closes its season in Japan.
