Brian Vickers won the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship in 2003. A year later, he joined Hendrick Motorsports as a full-time driver, where he recorded four top-10s and finished 25th in the final season standings.
There's a litany of competitive reasons why NASCAR doesn't need a playoff format in order to be exciting, but Sunday proved another reason why — it creates opportunities for the integrity of the sport to crumble in what should be its most exciting moments.