Connor Zilisch losing Xfinity Series championship should be final indictment of NASCAR's playoff system

There's a time for everything, including NASCAR finally making a change to a championship format that has only drawn more disdain with every passing year. 

NASCAR's current elimination-style playoff format is meant to reward winning. It's meant to reward the best drivers shining when the lights are brightest. 

But motorsports are inherently different than stick and ball sports, and a NASCAR season plays out over nine months of grueling competition. In the current playoff format, the drivers and teams who have been the best over the entire season are seldom rewarded. 

That's what happened to NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Connor Zilisch in Saturday's Xfinity Series championship race at Phoenix Raceway. Zilisch, a 19-year-old phenom, will be full-time in the Cup Series in 2026, won 10 races, scored 20 top-five finishes and led 1,013 laps despite missing a race. Over the final 21 races of the season, Zilisch finished top 10 20 times, including a stretch of 18 consecutive top-five finishes. 

But in a format where the championship is decided among four drivers in a single race, Zilisch finished second in the title hunt to Jesse Love, who passed Zilisch with 24 laps to go and went on to win the race and the title. It was an impressive drive by Love and one that was legendary given the circumstances. But it shouldn't have decided the championship in a year where Zilisch was leagues better than the competition.

All signs point to NASCAR making major changes to its championship format next season, making Zilisch's heartbreaking loss on Saturday likely the final indictment of a playoff format that never fit the style of NASCAR racing. 

Connor Zilisch not upset about championship result

"I’m still so proud of my team, what we’ve accomplished this year," Zilisch said in a post-race news conference. "We have nothing to hang our heads about. We were the best car for two-thirds of the year. We dominated until these last three races.

"We’ll keep our heads high. We are walking home with more than three times as many trophies as anybody else. We won the most races, had the most top 10s, top 5s, poles. There’s no reason we should be upset because of this outcome." 

Zilisch and the No. 88 team may not be upset — at least not publicly — about losing the title, but their emotions don't change the fact that Zilisch was far and away the best driver in Xfinity Series competition this season. 

That's not to take anything away from Love and the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing group, who are deserving champions. They won the title by the rules and did so with an impressive surge in the closing laps of the season. But in a year where Zilisch decimated the field as badly as he did, seeing a different driver walk away with the championship trophy isn't the best look for NASCAR and its championship format. 

"To be quite honest, at the end of the day he (Zilisch) won, I don’t know how many, 11 races, 12, something like that," said Danny Stockman, Love's crew chief. "But when it mattered tonight, it did not happen. He won a lot of races, but he’s not an Xfinity Series champion."

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.