Followers of inventory automotive racing probably spent Sunday like they usually would: watching NASCAR. It was a 400-mile race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in southern Florida. Throughout it, followers stood up, they sat down. They yelled, they went silent. They contemplated some strikes and praised others. They skilled each emotion however boredom.

Lately, it is like that each weekend.

There are few uninteresting moments in trendy NASCAR, as a result of the game is designed to keep away from them. Former NASCAR CEO Brian France spent years speaking about how he needed his sport to have extra “Recreation 7” moments, and in 2014, NASCAR overhauled its top-level Cup Collection to function a playoff format meant to create these moments.

With the playoffs, 16 drivers qualify for a 10-race postseason. (The remainder of the drivers are nonetheless on monitor, simply not racing for the title.) There are three “rounds” of three races, and after every spherical, 4 drivers get eradicated. The factors then reset for the brand new spherical, and everybody begins from scratch. For those who scrape by in a single spherical, you get new life within the subsequent. You probably have a foul spherical and find yourself on the skin, you are performed. For those who win a race in any spherical, you routinely advance to the subsequent. The playoffs culminate in a single race for the championship, the place factors not matter and the very best finisher that day wins the title.

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At first, it was a vastly unpopular thought. The system was difficult for newcomers, the foundations felt like manufactured drama and the champion felt like one of the best driver from someday, not the entire season. Recreation 7 buzzer-beaters are particular as a result of they don’t seem to be assured, not as a result of the foundations compelled them.

It has been nearly 10 years because the playoffs started, although, and followers watching Sunday’s race had been absolutely in awe.

Homestead is the second of three races within the Spherical of 8, which means we have eradicated all however eight drivers in championship rivalry. After the subsequent race at Martinsville Speedway, a half-mile brief monitor in Virginia, 4 of these drivers will likely be eradicated. The others will go into the Championship 4 finale with one shot on the title.

Coming into Homestead, 2021 Cup champion Kyle Larson had already superior to the Championship 4 with a win. William Byron, Denny Hamlin, and 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr. had been above the “reduce line” that marks who’s tentatively in place to make the subsequent spherical, whereas Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney and Chris Buescher had been beneath it.

Homestead is a monitor identified for ripping the fence. The quickest drivers are sometimes inches off the skin wall, balancing the will for pace with the information that if they are a hair out of line, they danger all the things. The race is 267 laps of hoping your ambition does not break you.

Buescher struggled all day, tanking himself within the factors. Truex, who was first in factors on the finish of the common season, parked his automotive with a mechanical subject late within the race. Hamlin’s automotive slammed into the wall with about 30 laps to go, proper after he handed Blaney for third. Hamlin stated one thing broke with the steering, and Blaney, who did not like how Hamlin raced him earlier than the wreck, referred to as him a “hack.”

Hamlin and Truex, who entered Homestead above the reduce line, now go to Martinsville beneath it.

Larson dove in for a pit cease late within the race, making an attempt and failing to decelerate to pit-road pace. He hit Blaney, who was additionally making a cease, then careened into the sand barrels defending drivers from a nasty collision with the wall on the entry to pit lane. Larson went to the storage, performed for the day, however already locked into the championship race. Blaney recovered for a second-place end, battling Byron, Reddick and Bell for the win.

Bell wasn’t an element for many of the day. His automotive was unhealthy, and he nearly went down a lap to the chief, however his group introduced his Toyota Camry to life with changes, and a late-race warning bunched up the sector. He drove by means of everybody to take the lead with 15 laps to go, holding off his playoff rivals to win and advance to the Championship 4.

Larson hits the limitations on the entrance of pit street! #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/13MvjQr6wc

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 22, 2023

His win leaves six drivers preventing for the ultimate two spots.

NASCAR has at all times been a dramatic sport with shut competitors. At Homestead, followers had been handled to some drivers crawling out of their factors deficits and others blowing their leads, all whereas understanding none of it was closing till the checkered flag.

For years, followers may very well be forgiven for considering that the playoffs — though entertaining — cheapened the worth of the championship. It is not a view held by many drivers, although.

“We’re all given the identical algorithm,” one advised ESPN, “whoever navigates them one of the best wins.”

That driver is correct. There are not NASCAR seasons the place a driver dominates, will get an enormous factors lead and wins the championship a number of races to go. Typically the motive force who dominates does not win, and generally they do not even make it to the title race, however everybody will get the identical algorithm and just one wins.

The playoffs do not manufacture the drama. They only give it a highlight, and we’re all higher off for it.