Roger Diez
The 2024 NASCAR season is over, and we have three new champions. Ty Majeski won the Craftsman Truck race and the series championship on Friday. Justin Allgaier finished second to Riley Herbst in Saturday’s Xfinity race but first among the four championship contenders to take his first and long-awaited division title. And on Sunday, Joey Logano led Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney to the checker to become a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, joining a very elite group of drivers. Only ten drivers in Cup history have won three or more championships, including Logano. He joins such legends as Richard Petty (7), Dale Earnhardt (7), Jimmie Johnson (7), Jeff Gordon (4), and three-time champions Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, and Tony Stewart.
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But race fans were not universally delighted with the outcome on the Cup side. The playoff format has come under fire, not for the first time, by purist fans who want to go back to the days of total season points determining the champion. Formula 1, IndyCar, IMSA, and every other major racing series still does it that way. But NASCAR is more about the entertainment value than the pure sporting aspect, which is why some have called it the WWE of motorsports. And prior to the adoption of the first playoff format in 2004, a lot of season championships were decided well before the final race. So, NASCAR decided that more drama was needed along with ticket sales and TV ratings, so they instituted the “Chase for the Championship” featuring the top 10 drivers at the end of the regular season. The format has since been tweaked into what we see today. Some of the criticisms of this year’s playoffs revolve around the fact that Logano wouldn’t even have been in contention without Alex Bowman’s disqualification for an underweight car at the Charlotte Roval race. Others have called the current system the “Penske Playoffs,” reflecting the team’s three consecutive championships. And I’ve seen a calculation that under the old non-playoff point system, Logano would have finished the season in 14th, behind both Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain. But despite all the controversy and complaints, I don’t see NASCAR making any major changes soon.
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Finally, we bid farewell to NASCAR Legend Bobby Allison, who took the final checkered flag last Saturday at the age of 86. Along with brother Donnie, Red Farmer, son Davey, and others, he was a member of the fabled “Alabama Gang.” His accomplishments include a Winston Cup championship in 1983, three Daytona 500 wins, four Southern 500 victories, three wins in the World 600, NASCAR’s longest race, and the Busch Clash win in 1982. Bobby was also a two-time NASCAR Modified champion, the 1980 IROC champion, and seven-time most popular driver in the Cup series. He has been elected to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, and the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and in 2023 was named one of NASCAR’s 75 greatest drivers. Bobby would drive anything and raced twice in the Indy 500 with a best finish of 25th in 1975. My personal Bobby Allison story dates to 1972 when I was working as an SCCA corner marshal. Bobby drove the last two races of the SCCA Trans-Am 2.5 challenge in one of Peter Brock’s famed BRE Datsun 510s. I was working those races at Laguna Seca and Riverside and got to see him out of his usual element but seeming to have a lot of fun with the little cars. He was one of the titans of our sport. Godspeed, Bobby Allison.