How to Win the Cup Title

By Bob Pockrass

Gentlemen, start your engines. And don’t let the pressure get to you.

The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs might be the most normal playoffs of any major sport this year. NASCAR has gotten in its full slate of regular season races – four original venues lost a race amid the COVID-19 pandemic – and now heads to its 10-race playoffs series as scheduled. 

Drivers won’t have to worry about running more than one race a week as they have done in the accelerated schedule to get to this point. The format is the same as set in the beginning of the season as far as how drivers get eliminated.

In the opening round, the 16 drivers eligible for the championship have their points reset to 2,000 plus their regular-season playoff points (5 points for a race win, 1 point for a stage win, and points based on a top-10 finish in the final regular season standings). After three races – Darlington, Richmond and Bristol – the four drivers with the fewest points who did not win during the round are eliminated.

Repeat this two more times – reset to 3,000 plus playoff points for the second round of Las Vegas, Talladega and the Charlotte road course, and reset to 4,000 plus playoff points for the third round of Kansas, Texas and Martinsville. Then the four drivers left eligible go to Phoenix with 5,000 points and aren’t eligible for stage points, so the driver who finishes best ends up with the most points and the championship.

While the elimination style format began in 2014, the playoff points started in 2017 and have changed much of the way the game is played. After three years, there is a little bit of an idea of how to win this thing:

Don’t Beat Yourself

"We have got all the momentum we need," said Denny Hamlin, whose six wins this year is second-most in the series. "We will have the playoff points that we need and it just up to us to go out there and hope that we can execute as well as we have for most of the season

"If we do, we are going to give ourselves a chance to win the championship."

Ah yes, don’t beat yourself – the simplest mantra in sports and probably the most difficult thing to accomplish. Hamlin knows that, as he has seen solid playoff runs crumble because of mechanical failures, fuel strategy that didn’t work out, and the memorable piece of tape that was too big on his front grille and upset the handling of the car.

In racing, a part can break through no fault of your own. Kyle Larson seemed destined to make the third round in 2017 but mediocre runs of 10th and 13th in the first two races of the round, and then a blown engine 73 laps into the race at Kansas to finish 39th, ended his playoff run. He had 33 playoff points – the only driver with more than 28 playoff points after the regular season not to advance to the championship round.

But this year, not beating yourself brings in a whole new meaning because there is no practice and qualifying, which is the one big difference between this year and the previous seasons. Drivers have raced with no practice nor qualifying in 21 events this year to help teams manage the accelerated schedule when racing resumed during the pandemic.

"There may be some teams that hit it really fast and others that need to make big swings on their adjustments and it’s how you get to that point as quickly as possible [is key]," said 2018 Cup champion Joey Logano.

"I don’t think the playoffs change what we’ve been doing."

But beating yourself by getting in an accident or a mechanical failure could cause drivers to pay a bigger price this year because the way lineups are set. NASCAR sets the field with a formula of 50 percent based on the finish of the previous race, 35 percent of where the team is on points, and 15 percent of fastest-lap ranking in the previous race.

While the playoff drivers will always start ahead of non-playoff drivers, a mechanical failure or a crash likely will result in a 15th or 16th starting position for the next race.

"You definitely want to be starting off good and have a good previous race with the way the lineups are set now with that algorithm they’ve got on previous week finishing and fast lap and points position, all that stuff," Ryan Blaney said.

"You definitely don’t want to be back in the playoff grid, so preparation is huge and just to set you up for that first stage. That’s very important."

Earn Stage Points 

Speaking of that, it’s those stage points that everyone is talking about in the playoffs.

NASCAR divides the races into three stages, and drivers in the top-10 at the finish of the first two stages earn points on a 10-to-1 scale. A driver who wins both stages theoretically could have a bad finish but not a horrible points day thanks to those extra points.

"You look at stage points of being very critical when you’re running against 15 other guys throughout the first round and then it gets cut throughout the rounds, so stage points are huge," said Blaney, who ranks second among the playoff drivers in stage points earned at the playoff tracks this year. 

Logano is the perfect example of how stage points matter so much. In his championship run in 2018, he entered the playoffs with just 14 playoff points. Despite that low number, he advanced out of the first two rounds by points, not just because of good finishes, but by earning 18 of a possible 60 in the first round and then 32 out of a possible 60 in the second round.

"Every point matters and you just need to race that way because you don’t know what that point is going to be worth at the end of the day," Logano said. "That part is probably where the intensity piece comes up a little bit."

Just Win

Every driver who has won in this format has won a race in the playoffs. Now it might not come until the end – in the two season Kyle Busch won his championships, he didn’t win in the playoffs until Homestead.

But it sure makes it easier to win earlier in the playoffs, especially in races early in a round. Since the elimination format in 2014, the four championship drivers who aren’t named Kyle Busch have won either the first or second race of at least one of the rounds, eliminating pressure for at least one week. That can do wonders.

Winning earns an additional 5 playoff points – key for the second and third rounds – and in general can help the psyche.

Kevin Harvick (seven wins) and Hamlin (six wins) have combined to win half the races this year. No other driver has more than three.

"[We need to be] just winning more consistently," said Chase Elliott, who has two wins this year. "We see the 11 [of Hamlin] and the 4 [of Harvick] and those guys winning about every other week.

"When they're not winning, they're running second or third, right? You got to be doing that. You got to be up front more often. You can't hit it one week, then be off for three weeks, then hit it again, then be off for another three weeks, and expect the cards to fall your way."

Don’t Sweat It

The pressure of these elimination rounds is intense, especially for those who have not been through it before. What has been learned over the last several years is to stay patient and try to take advantage of the breaks.

Kurt Busch is 15th in the standings with just one playoff point. And he will try to relax while also thinking about what was mentioned earlier – stage points. Just nine points separate eighth through 16th and with up to 20 stage points available, those spots can change quickly Sunday at Darlington.

"We have one good stage, we can jump up to eighth in points before the halfway break at Darlington," Busch said. "Points are basically even right now.

"It’s a matter of just staying calm and cool and being patient and finding the right points through the different stages and through these first three races."

Logano said for those who haven’t been as dominant as Harvick and Hamlin, they must have reasonable expectations and use the next nine weeks to position themselves to capitalize in the championship race.

"You’re not going to find one thing that’s going to be a light switch that’s going to put us all the way to where the 4 and the 11 are," Logano said.

"But we’re not far off.  We’re two or three little things away from that and this year is just reminding me of 2018."

On The Air

Saturday
Xfinity SportClips 200 (Darlington), 12:30 p.m., NBC

Sunday
Gander RV Trucks SC Education Lottery 200 (Darlington), 2 p.m., FS1
Cup Cookout Southern 500 (Darlington), 6 p.m., NBCSN

Stat of Note

Kyle Busch, who doesn’t have a Cup win this year, has 15 Cup wins on the three tracks that make up the first round of the 2020 playoffs.

Social Spotlight

– Aric Almirola announcing a contract extension through 2021

They Said It

"Zoom meetings suck. ... Everybody ought to have a free pass at Zoom when we’re all done with this crap. It’s all I can do to remember my password to turn on the damn computer and you’ve got me clicking Zooms and unmuting and muting and videos." – Clint Bowyer