Elton Sawyer: NASCAR is ‘open’ to changing playoff format

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Competition, had some interesting things to say about NASCAR’s playoff format following Joey Logano‘s Cup Series Championship win. On SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Sawyer said the sanctioning body is willing to look at the playoff format during the offseason.

“When you leave Phoenix and the questions that are being asked do you have the most deserving champion? I would say yes,” Sawyer said. “Again, as we just went through with Joey’s season, his body of work, yeah some misfortune by others, but that happens in sports. I would think as we take a deeper dive and look at this and we look at okay, How (a) do you get in the playoffs, (b) how do you move from round to round? Is that equitable, is that the best way to do it?

“I think you take all that input, and we’ve got some really smart people in our industry with our teams and our drivers, and being able to get feedback and see exactly maybe what we have is the best model. But if it’s not, we’re open. We’re all ears on it and we have some ideas, but we want to make sure as an industry we’re doing the right thing for the sport and the right thing to crown our champions.”

Joey Logano seems to love the NASCAR playoff format

Logano won his third Cup Series title after winning Sunday’s race at Phoenix. He made the Championship 4 after winning the Las Vegas race during the Round of 8. During the regular season, Logano won one race and finished ninth in the standings. He then went on to win three playoff races to become the 10th driver in NASCAR history to win at least three Cup Series titles.

Before the championship race, Logano fired back at critics who said he was “lucky” to be in the championship race. “Everyone has the same opportunity,” Logano said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “When we roll into February and Daytona, everyone has the same opportunity to get to the Championship 4. Doesn’t matter how you get there, but we all have the same opportunity to get there. We came in as maybe not the No. 1 seed, maybe not even the No. 10 seed. But we figured out how to get through the rounds, and now we’re here.”