Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick agree that the NASCAR Cup Series is due for a change regarding the way a champion is crowned.
During the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour, Hamlin sat down for an interview with the aforementioned Harvick, where the former NASCAR champion, who’s been a beneficiary of the system, stated his belief that a rotation would be nice between multiple tracks for the championship-deciding race.
“It’d be nice to see — I’d like to see it rotate every — even if it was two tracks, and it just rotated every other year,” Harvick stated, prefacing the conversation with Hamlin.
In response, Hamlin proposed a fascinating idea that may have some serious merit, revealing that he’d rather a championship round, similar to the prior rounds in the playoffs, instead of a one-off race deciding the winner.
“I’m a fan of a championship round, personally,” Hamlin elaborated. “I’m just — I’m more of a person that, I think one race is just too small of a sample size. I know that it’s, that’s the way it is, and that’s how they crown champions now. But if we have Round of 16, Round of 8, Round of 4 before, why don’t you have a Round of Championship? It’s simple.
“Break it down. A mile and a half, you can have — I don’t care, put a road course. Mile and a half, short track, whatever you want to do. But I think that the larger the sample size, the better — the better the results are going to be for the true champion.”
While that goes against NASCAR’s goal of creating a Game 7 atmosphere for their championship race, Harvick sees Hamlin’s point, and relents that a change is sorely needed for the future.
“I would agree with you on that. I think that I think the point system definitely needs, definitely needs to be looked at, from the amount of races that we have,” Harvick added. “And I don’t think that — the TV ratings haven’t moved, like it was, for this championship race.”
Even with those potential concerns from NASCAR’s decision-makers, Hamlin believes watching the Championship 4 go through the gauntlet could an entertaining change.
“Yes sir. You’re exactly right. And I think that if anything, I think there’s more — you have three championship races, no one will pull away and win it after the second race. All races will be relevant,” Hamlin delineated. “I think you would have a heck of a battle, and you’re really going to test those final four drivers at each type of different skill set.”
There’s something to be said about having three races with only four drivers in contention for the championship, when the size of the field is almost 40 cars week-in and week-out. Changes should be made in the future, but perhaps some tweaks to Denny Hamlin’s proposal would have to be made.
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