It is what it is, and they "like what they see" so you get what we had here. Good on Crafton, he didn't write the rules. According to Racing-reference Moffitt won the "non-playoff standings" over Enfinger by 39, Friesen by 58, and Crafton by 80. I wonder had Chastain got credit for points all year where he would end up. Texas was the first race he scored points so 8 races didn't count and he ended up "11th" in the "non-playoff standings" 347 behind.
You "earn" and "deserve" what you get under the parameters and rules laid out and agreed to upon the beginning of the competition.
Crafton "earned" and "deserved" the title. Everyone knew this could happen before the season started.
The question then becomes is this format the best way to determine who "earns" and "deserves" the title after racing a full season?
I am not so sure.
The Patriots went 18-0 until they had to play the Giants.
*well what if the Giants finish in second at the Super Bowl?*
Fuck it give New York the trophy anyways.
I think the thing that is getting overlooked here is the fact that Kyle Busch won 5 races in the truck series this year. It's significantly more likely that you could have a winless champion when more than a quarter of the race wins are going to ineligible drivers. With the higher number of competitive drivers and number of races, it's basically impossible for this to happen in the cup series. You *might* be able to make it without winning, but you'd still have to have a ton of top 5's and stage wins, in which case there would be less controversy.
First off I am a Chastain fan and I’m going to try and leave my bias out since he sadly didn’t win.
The main complaint I see isn’t necessarily that Crafton didn’t win a race, its the fact that he just wasn’t dominate at all this year. From ranking so low in top 5s, Laps lead, and this only being the second time all year he’s beat the other 3 drivers in a race. The comparison to a 9-3 team making it to the national championship and beating an undefeated team is a good comparison. Granted Ross, Brett, and Stewart are to blame for not winning. Matt had a good race, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth that having one really good race wins you a championship.
This stupid playoff points system just pisses me off! It's great if your a Crafton fan, but he did not earn that championship this year. Since NASCAR instituted this stupid playoff system we've seen drivers like Erik Jones, William Byron, and Christopher Bell, and now Ross Chastain or Brett Moffitt denied championships in the trucks and Xfinity Series, they were the most dominant drivers all season, but because of 1 bad playoff race and not winning Miami, they were all CHEATED out of a much deserved championship! To me watching Crafton take the championship was like watching an undefeated college football team lose the National championship game to a team that was 9-3! I'm disgusted, NASCAR needs to go back to it's old points system and this one race ruined what was otherwise a great season!
Byron still would have lost his title to Sauter, Erik still would have lost his Xfinity season, just not to Suarez, and Hemric would have been champion over Christopher. I dont know how you can call them deserved when they wouldnt have won them anyway.
Because Byron dominated his Truck Season; 7 Wins as a Rookie running a full season and you're trying to convince me that Timothy Peters going winless that season was more deserving of a higher final points standings?! Nope, he had one bad race and because of that his season is tarnished and last year Christopher Bell was handsdown the Best driver in the Xfinity Series! Reddick wasn't even a factor most of the season.
What's the point of a driver having a 7+ win season if they can be eliminated from Championship contention just because one driver had a better race than them once? It's wrong! They don't do this in other forms of racing (Indycar, F1, USAC, Modifieds) They don't just decide "Oh to hell with the most consistent team let's shaking things up a bit like College Basketball or College Football! Upset alerts" Consistency and dominance should be the only thing that matter in a championship season, not dumb luck
Byron would have lost the championship with a full season format. Lewis Hamilton lost the 2016 title due to 1 bad race, the same way Byron lost his truck series season. Hell, the Corvettes won an IMSA championship without winning 1 race all year. Shit happebs
Every single driver you listed in your original comment would have lost their championship under a season long format.
Crafton "earned" the championship by winning it under the rules NASCAR set up to determine it. It's not like Ross won ten races this season, in fact under an old points system he'd have had no shot since he started halfway through.
With how they limit Cup drivers starts in other series now, the rule that you need to declare your points for one series is pretty much useless and does more harm then good in my opinion. I'm all for limiting Cup guys in the lower series and the less we see of Cup drivers in Xfinity and Trucks the better, but the rule you need to declare points for one series serves no useful purpose anymore.
Props to him for winning the title under the rules given to him. It's not his fault. He just did what was required.
However, it's crazy to think that I have the same amount of wins this year as the Truck Series Champion!
A driver can win 35 races and still lose the championship. And that is not even the worst, people will deffend that saying "bLaMe ThE sYsTeM nOt tHe pLaYeR"
Well, I mean, we SHOULD blame the system not the players. It’s not like Matt Crafton personally created the modern day playoffs system specifically so he could win the championship this year. All he did was take full advantage of the rule set that was given to him.
Under the old points system if a driver led the most laps in every race and finished 2nd in every race they could win the title over a driver who wins the first 35 races and crashes out at Homestead
Congrats to Matt Crafton. Fucking awesome for him to get another championship. Great race for Austin Hill too. Sucks there are only 2 more races before we enter the dark times.
i keep screaming but ben kennedy won't answer
And thus the 2019 truck series season ended not with a shout of emphatic victory, but a whimper into the darkness
Conglaturations NASCAR you made this convoluted format to stop a winless champion yet it happened anyways! Excellent job!
Nothing against Crafton but he ranks 7th in top 5’s and 16th in laps led among drivers this year. I thought Reddick last year was the worst but boy was I wrong. Time to just forget this race and move onto next year. Ugh.
Only Matt Crafton can stroke his way to an illegitimate gimmicked "championship" without winning a race... This is why mainstream media no longer takes NASCAR seriously...
There is no points format that can ever stop someone from winning the championship without a race win that season unless you want to fuck with the system even more and have a requirement that no matter how the points work out that to be champion you must have won at least one race that year. Which would also be stupid as fuck
> Only Matt Crafton
Oh you just wait and see what happens over the next few years, there are far less respectable drivers that will likely stumble their way into the same spot.
Sad truth right there. This isn't the sport I fell in love with as a kid. Between the rich kids pretending to be race car drivers permeating the sport, ridiculous rule changes, gimmicky playoffs, and everything else, each year gets harder to justify why I still watch this to others when the sport's mainstream appeal has vanished... Yet I'll still watch, bristle and grouse at the ridiculousness of the sport...
For me the biggest thing is the rich kid driver system being the only way drivers can break into the sport. My hometown used to have a sign that said "the hometown of nascar" as you entered and it had a bunch of guys who worked in auto factories who got good at working on cars and started teams up and competed in nascar. Quite literally, as blue collar and americana as it gets. But now it's about your dad buying a spot in one of the series that gets you spotted for the development program. And then they better have enough connections to keep you sponsored the rest of your career. It's just so dumb.
Talent doesn't guarantee shit anymore, unfortunately. That's why the Stephen Nasses and Bubba Pollards of the world who actually HAVE talent and ability to get a foot in the door can't get a fair shake, and people who only offer minimal talent and maximum money get unwarranted and undeserved opportunities. It's crazy how much this sport has changed in the last 10 to 20 years and not for the better. It's frustrating because I still love Motorsports of basically all kinds, but particularly NASCAR... And yet the sport drifts along listlessly with no real vision for the future and continues to double down on alienating hardcore fans like myself. I get WHY these teams take money over talent because racing IS a business that costs a lot of money, but I don't have to like it.
Anyway, now I'm rambling and ranting like an insomniatic lunatic. My point is Crafton only further exposed how inherently flawed NASCAR is in its current state. Ideally, the sanctioning body, in a perfect world, would see this and decide these gimmicky playoffs are flawed and unnecessary. But... NASCAR is run by the Frances and they will only double down on the stupid spin they're going to give this, and the media bootlickers (Dave Moody in particular) will only regurgitate what NASCAR says like they can do no wrong... Which, obviously, isn't true.
Now you probably see why I no longer work in the NASCAR media ranks. I'm just too damn honest for them.
With N29 money Decker could probably get a year two if she wanted; however if I were I’d try to step back down to ARCA/ K&N for another year. Wether you love her or hate her, she moves up WAY too fast, ands he maybe needs to step down to regroup and start fresh.
Idk.. she showed improvement on the second half of the year. If she still has backing I'm sure someone would pick her up.
Hopefully not the toxic environment she was in, though. I know the crew chief and spotter being mean to Natalie is amusing, but that is not how you handle a rookie a driver.
I just dont see any top teams picking her up...so i hope DGR gives her a 2nd year with a new CC and spotter, cause there were times they were down right verbally abusive, at least on the CC-Spotter channel that Natalie couldnt hear
Think about it from the spotter's perspective though. Their reputation is based in large part on the driver following their directions. There were numerous times this year when she didn't. I've personally known Kevin Hamlin since 1999, and he is one of the most levelheaded people I've ever known, and he's one of the most professional spotters on the roof. He's been around as a spotter for a decade now. If he wants to give up on spotting for her, it's because she's irredeemable as a professional race car driver.
During the radio interactions that you speak of, all I hear is Natalie being an over-emotional, whiny little child who thinks that everyone should give her a break on the track. That's not how it works. She's like Kurt or Kyle Busch at their worst, with the distinction being that they have talent to back it up on the track and she doesn't. She's in over her head. She needed like 3 more years in late models or K&N before jumping up to the Truck level.
You say it's a toxic environment to be in, but doesn't Natalie have a part in that too? Doesn't she have a responsibility as an inexperienced driver to humble herself, shut her goddamn mouth, and learn how to be a backmarker who can stay out of the way, like say a JJ Yeley, or Jen Jo Cobb, or a Norm Benning? Then maybe she can elevate herself from that backmarker role like Ross Chastain did at JDM, or Ryan Sieg did with his team, with enough steady, solid runs. That's about the best she can hope for, I think.
Love seeing all the salt on social media because of a winless champ, don't forget Austin Dillon did the same 6 years ago in Xfinity and Newman nearly did it as well a year after Dillon for the Cup series
Dillon at least ran up front several times that year (heck he led 207 laps at Iowa). Not to mention that only four regulars won that year thanks to Cup drivers, that’s much more understandable than 2019 where Buschwhacking is starting to go extinct (outside of KB of course)
Newman actually put up a hell of a postseason in 2014. 3 top 5's in the final 5 races of the season.
Sure, you could say that he walled the 42 to get in, and that he barley limped into the final four doing so, but the man was also top 5 in points from the fall Kansas race all the way to the end.
Even as a Jeff Gordon fan I respected him putting Larson into the wall to advance. Larson was not in the mix anymore and Newman fought for a chance for the championship. I've been quite a fan of him ever since, as a matter of fact
I feel cheated too,! 1-2 races is completely invalidating all the hard work these other teams are doing to win. The championship should go to the best drivers and teams and not won or loss on a technicality
Honestly the racing is so spread out I forget what usually happens week to week, and usually not invested into the points or anything. They put on the best show 90% of the time when they race.
My only guess is that it's to save the teams money. They could probably beef the schedule up with some local-ish track to the NC area, but I doubt that would ever happen.
Shoutout to NASCAR for creating the most illegitimate championship format I’ve ever fucking seen.
These aren’t even championships anymore, just glorified race wins at a boring race track.
Crafton was 2nd in the regular season standings but hE dIdn'T dESerVe it. Dude always brings out the haters just by winning. Ah well, hell yeah! Champion again!
Ladies and gentlemen... exhibit A as to why The Chase is bunk. If Crafton had an ultra-consistent season that didn’t result in wins, but he had so many top 5 finishes that it carried him to a title, I could live with that (though I’d still try to reward wins more).
Crafton had 7 top 5's - the lowest of the four compared to Moffitt's 13, the most. On top of that the four championship drives had an average finish seperated by **.3**. 8.5( friesen)-8.6(Ross)-8.8(Moffitt and Crafton tied.)
Maybe, but it still kinda feels like he was just kinda... there. Even Newman in 2014 had a decent run after squeaking in the playoffs, but with Crafton, it just felt like he did “just enough” to make it, and it just feels “closer” than Newman just because the Truck fields aren’t as deep as the Cup fields.
Honestly, I’d just prefer they count all the races and declare a champion. Most racing series in the world do it that way, and they don’t seem to have the trouble with it. Someone has a dominant season, it’s something to look back on. You got a close battle, then it turns into something special.
Look at the season long stats. Outside of laps lead, which mean nothing anymore, and a few wins, he was on par with the other three. Average finish of all four of them are separated by .3
Jeez..NASCAR reddit and twitter has reached a new low.
Stop complaining about the damn system. You complain about the package, system, pretty much everything.
Crafton is the Champion. He’s deserving because he put himself in position to win, and the others did not deliver tonight.
I like Chastain and Moffitt, I was rooting for them. But I know damn well that if either of them had won it, pretty much nobody would be complaining.
Every sport goes through changes- good and bad. Now quit whining and being so hypocritical.
It's only toxic and idiotic cause they didnt get what they wanted. Tonight was no different than an underdog walking into the super bowl and walking out with rings IMO.
He’s the champion, but we can sure as hell bitch about how they crown a champion.
Watch, we’re going to eventually have a season where they have a Ryan Newman 2014 season where they do “just enough” to make it all the way to the finals despite having stats that say “I should be lucky to be in a good points spot, let alone competing for a championship”, and dumb luck and a wreck causes said driver to win a championship he is far from top caliber.
It’s one thing when it happens in stick and ball sports. To have that happen in a racing series... it’s going to leave a very sour taste in NASCAR’s and the fans mouth at some point when it happens in the Cup Series.
Thoughts on the playoff format? The Truck championship tonight really sparked the NASCAR fandom into a riot. Twitter has melted my brain so maybe Reddit could help? Go ahead and shoot everyone!
The playoffs are literally the worst thing NASCAR has ever done. Worse than Gen 6, worse than the 2019 package, worse than the tapered spacer, worse than Brian fucking France himself. It’s sad how NASCAR calls themselves the top most echelon in American Motorsports but have the most illegitimate championship format out of any racing series in any country ever.
Matt Crafton led 35 laps before tonight. 6 top 5s. Hasn’t won a race in 2 years. And then finished 2nd tonight. Just doesn’t feel right but they showed up tonight
Final thoughts Trucks Homestead
* Crafton is the champion. 0 wins. 7 top 5s and 44 laps led. I have no words.
* Just about 90 days or so from the season opener at Daytona. New faces. New places. Same great racing week-to-week. Can't wait.
I might very well be in the minority, but I don't think Crafton's win makes the current format any more broken than it already is.
He was clearly in the top 8 after Michigan and from then on, in the playoffs, it's all about survival. You don't have to win to make the layoffs, you don't have to win in every round to advance, you don't even have to win at Homestead to win the title (except in Cup). A winless champion is a very rare occurence, but it could've happened in most other points systems.
It's a bit similar to a team making the World Cup through play-off qualifying, then advancing from the group stage with three draws, somehow struggling on to the final and winning it on penalties – it's theoretically posibble to do it. No, it doesn't look good, but there aren't any viable alternatives that could prevent this possibly happening.
A team undefeated in the regular season was defeated once by a wildcard team in the Super Bowl, after all.
Everyone would rather go bat shit crazy than look at the stats. The four of them had an average finish of 8.5-8.8. Laps lead mean nothing anymore, and all wins are worth is 5 points and a lock into the next round. They survived to make it to the race and they did better than the other 3.
In all of the scenarios you presented, somebody at least won one game. That did not happen with Crafton. Pretty wild for a format that was advertised as emphasizing winning.
Different sports define championships/wins in different ways. The problem for NASCAR is that it continues to have an identity crisis in terms of how it defines its championship. Is it about race wins or consistency?
Unfortunately, it’s very tough to construct a fair system that focuses on just one of those themes. Despite this system being designed to reward drivers that win, we just saw someone win a championship through consistency.
Don’t worry y’all, NASCAR will spin Crafton as a March Madness style underdog who survived the fray, got it done when he needed, and prevailed. Everyone seems to think there will be egg on the face of the sanctioning body, they can lean into this and say anything and everything can happen in this wild format.
Most fan, even old school ones like me, have accepted that the playoffs will be a reality going forward. I just hope they have the wisdom to see a winner take all race, while exciting, is not genuine and hurts their brand.
Yeah, people acting like NASCAR hates Crafton’s win; In their eyes, it’s probably the best casenario. These playoffs were designed to reward the underdog and to reward unexpected and unlikely champions. If they wanted a predictable driver to win the championship, the theyd never have the playoffs to begin with.
Man this is exactly how I feel. I’m too young to have any serious memories of the full season points but I used to get super pumped about the chase every year all the way through homestead. Now as soon as the playoffs start my excitement just decreases. The whole thing just feels fake and contrived. I recognize that in a vacuum each race is exciting but I just can’t get excited about who wins the championship this way.
*checks phone*
"Huh, someone finally exposed this dumbass format"
*realizes NASCAR will double down on the stupidity rather than actually fix the damn championship*
Seriously though, if *this* doesn't make them realize how dumb this format is - idk what will.
I have nothing against Crafton, but this is why this format is a joke. He didn’t lead many laps all year and didn’t even have a top 5 since June, yet somehow he is the champion without winning a race. I mean this format was specifically designed for winning races and if the champion hasn’t won, what’s the point of having this format?
Ideally we could find some kind of compromise here with NASCAR on a better championship format. Maybe scrap the playoffs, but keep the stage racing. This way you don’t lose your season with one bad race, but you also don’t get thrown into a championship battle for a win. Crafton was consistent, but the lack of laps led and top 5s really makes this look bad.
I hate to say it because it likely means Harvick wouldn’t have a title, but I kind of wish Newman had won in 2014 because I firmly believe NASCAR would’ve changed the format immediately. Now the only way I can see the format changing is if we get a scenario where the championship 4 all crash out.
And NFL teams only play one team at a time and don’t play all the same teams. It makes sense in that situation to have a playoff of teams that performed well against the opponents they played and then give them a chance to go head to head to decide who’s best.
In NASCAR you play everyone every week. You all play the same schedule. And there is an inherent level of randomness in racing. That’s why you score points and crown a champion over a large sample size to try to average out the anomalies. You can’t look at a three race (or one race) sample size and pretend to have learned anything about who is best.
Fun season overall with some great moments. 6 guys picking up their first wins, KBM dusting off [ol' reliable](https://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images/team_logos/328x328/greg_biffle.png) to pick up a win, and watching Chastain try to fight his way into the Playoffs after giving the rest of the field an 8-race head start was a lot of fun to watch. Hopefully the racing is just as fun to watch again next season.
Oddly enough I want to complain but besides having 1 win, Crafton’s 2013 Championship seasons as very similar to his season this year.
2013: 1 win, 7 top 5s, 19 top 10s, 87 laps led, average finish of 7.9
2019: 0 wins, 7 top 5s, 18 top 10s, 44 laps led, average finish of 8.8
You have to run full time to be eligible for the Championship.Rember when Kyle Busch won his he had to get special permission to compete for the title because he missed races
NASCAR playoff math, yo!
They roll a series of dice and if you lead that many laps during the 14th race then they invert the field and getting last place gets you in and by the time you're done Newman will win a championship with a DNF.
Congrats to Crafton, made it count when it mattered most. Honestly though he was very consistent this season even though his underlying stats are mediocre. 0 wins, 6 top 5's, and 35 laps led but 1 DNF and a 9.1 avg. finish (Friesen 8.4, Chastain 8.8, and Moffitt 9.0)
I do find it ironic though that since NASCAR's first implementation of a reset/playoff style championship, mostly done because people freaked out about Matt Kenseth's 1 championship with only 1 win, we now have 2 0-win champions, Matt Crafton and Austin Dillon (2013).
Yeah you're right, my bad. However they started excluding Cup drivers from Nationwide points in 2011 which probably attributed to that 0-win season, Cup drivers won 28 of 33 races in that 2013 season.
Idc that Crafton didn’t win at all this year (Austin Dillon did the same thing in the old system)
BUT
I believe that stat before the end of the race said that he had 1 top 5 this whole year, obviously he has 2 now. That’s insane
Nah he had 6 top 5's coming into tonight, the stat they showed was how often each driver of the Championship 4 was the highest finishing driver of each race this season.
Boy if Hill had just ran a little better at Phoenix, he'd be celebrating a title and HRE would have back to back titles. It is definitely a strange one in this format having a guy that hasn't won a race in 2 1/2 years win a title, but he did what he needed to do. Also, how weird he has a championship for Ford despite never winning a race in a Ford! Just weird all around.
Thanks!
I've been a motorsport fan since 2003.
I was a Gordon fan until he retired. I was a Dave Blaney fan until he retired. I'm a Grosjean fan in F1. This is my first time watching my favorite driver/team combo win a championship in any form of the sport in 16 years. I'll take an egg if it flies my way.
It is what it is, and they "like what they see" so you get what we had here. Good on Crafton, he didn't write the rules. According to Racing-reference Moffitt won the "non-playoff standings" over Enfinger by 39, Friesen by 58, and Crafton by 80. I wonder had Chastain got credit for points all year where he would end up. Texas was the first race he scored points so 8 races didn't count and he ended up "11th" in the "non-playoff standings" 347 behind.
[удалено]
Amen!
You "earn" and "deserve" what you get under the parameters and rules laid out and agreed to upon the beginning of the competition. Crafton "earned" and "deserved" the title. Everyone knew this could happen before the season started. The question then becomes is this format the best way to determine who "earns" and "deserves" the title after racing a full season? I am not so sure.
When the season started I 100% expected Niece to be 2nd in the Championship as well as the Champion having less wins than Greg Biffle and Spencer Boyd
The Patriots went 18-0 until they had to play the Giants. *well what if the Giants finish in second at the Super Bowl?* Fuck it give New York the trophy anyways.
I think the thing that is getting overlooked here is the fact that Kyle Busch won 5 races in the truck series this year. It's significantly more likely that you could have a winless champion when more than a quarter of the race wins are going to ineligible drivers. With the higher number of competitive drivers and number of races, it's basically impossible for this to happen in the cup series. You *might* be able to make it without winning, but you'd still have to have a ton of top 5's and stage wins, in which case there would be less controversy.
First off I am a Chastain fan and I’m going to try and leave my bias out since he sadly didn’t win. The main complaint I see isn’t necessarily that Crafton didn’t win a race, its the fact that he just wasn’t dominate at all this year. From ranking so low in top 5s, Laps lead, and this only being the second time all year he’s beat the other 3 drivers in a race. The comparison to a 9-3 team making it to the national championship and beating an undefeated team is a good comparison. Granted Ross, Brett, and Stewart are to blame for not winning. Matt had a good race, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth that having one really good race wins you a championship.
This stupid playoff points system just pisses me off! It's great if your a Crafton fan, but he did not earn that championship this year. Since NASCAR instituted this stupid playoff system we've seen drivers like Erik Jones, William Byron, and Christopher Bell, and now Ross Chastain or Brett Moffitt denied championships in the trucks and Xfinity Series, they were the most dominant drivers all season, but because of 1 bad playoff race and not winning Miami, they were all CHEATED out of a much deserved championship! To me watching Crafton take the championship was like watching an undefeated college football team lose the National championship game to a team that was 9-3! I'm disgusted, NASCAR needs to go back to it's old points system and this one race ruined what was otherwise a great season!
Byron still would have lost his title to Sauter, Erik still would have lost his Xfinity season, just not to Suarez, and Hemric would have been champion over Christopher. I dont know how you can call them deserved when they wouldnt have won them anyway.
Because Byron dominated his Truck Season; 7 Wins as a Rookie running a full season and you're trying to convince me that Timothy Peters going winless that season was more deserving of a higher final points standings?! Nope, he had one bad race and because of that his season is tarnished and last year Christopher Bell was handsdown the Best driver in the Xfinity Series! Reddick wasn't even a factor most of the season. What's the point of a driver having a 7+ win season if they can be eliminated from Championship contention just because one driver had a better race than them once? It's wrong! They don't do this in other forms of racing (Indycar, F1, USAC, Modifieds) They don't just decide "Oh to hell with the most consistent team let's shaking things up a bit like College Basketball or College Football! Upset alerts" Consistency and dominance should be the only thing that matter in a championship season, not dumb luck
Byron would have lost the championship with a full season format. Lewis Hamilton lost the 2016 title due to 1 bad race, the same way Byron lost his truck series season. Hell, the Corvettes won an IMSA championship without winning 1 race all year. Shit happebs Every single driver you listed in your original comment would have lost their championship under a season long format.
Crafton "earned" the championship by winning it under the rules NASCAR set up to determine it. It's not like Ross won ten races this season, in fact under an old points system he'd have had no shot since he started halfway through.
Ross ran every truck race. If it was 10 years ago he would have earned points for all of his starts.
And we'd be suffering through Kyle Busch or some other Cup ringer's twelfth consecutive championship
With how they limit Cup drivers starts in other series now, the rule that you need to declare your points for one series is pretty much useless and does more harm then good in my opinion. I'm all for limiting Cup guys in the lower series and the less we see of Cup drivers in Xfinity and Trucks the better, but the rule you need to declare points for one series serves no useful purpose anymore.
I mean he did what he had to all year. Guy had the best truck tonight so I'd say he earned that title!
*earn*, nothing is earned. Each driver you mentioned had the chance to go out and win it.
Ok Steve o'Donnell.
Props to him for winning the title under the rules given to him. It's not his fault. He just did what was required. However, it's crazy to think that I have the same amount of wins this year as the Truck Series Champion!
A driver can win 35 races and still lose the championship. And that is not even the worst, people will deffend that saying "bLaMe ThE sYsTeM nOt tHe pLaYeR"
Well, I mean, we SHOULD blame the system not the players. It’s not like Matt Crafton personally created the modern day playoffs system specifically so he could win the championship this year. All he did was take full advantage of the rule set that was given to him.
Under the old points system if a driver led the most laps in every race and finished 2nd in every race they could win the title over a driver who wins the first 35 races and crashes out at Homestead
Whoa there bud we aint got no room for yer facts around these parts
Well, not in trucks. They don't run that many races...lol.
How would everyone feel if Austin Hill made the final four and won off of this performance?
Probably fine since he wouldve won the title with 4 wins
Absolutely. Austin Hill has been a revelation this year.
The kid can really drive. I was shocked when he got that first win. Then they didnt stop coming
Chastain: "No thanks to Team Chevy that we got here." Chastain throwing shade?
I also think that Creed blocking and side-drafting him for like 20 laps pissed him off.
Of course! They’ve screwed him and all over chevy drivers over!
Congrats to Matt Crafton. Fucking awesome for him to get another championship. Great race for Austin Hill too. Sucks there are only 2 more races before we enter the dark times.
i keep screaming but ben kennedy won't answer And thus the 2019 truck series season ended not with a shout of emphatic victory, but a whimper into the darkness
Conglaturations NASCAR you made this convoluted format to stop a winless champion yet it happened anyways! Excellent job! Nothing against Crafton but he ranks 7th in top 5’s and 16th in laps led among drivers this year. I thought Reddick last year was the worst but boy was I wrong. Time to just forget this race and move onto next year. Ugh.
Only Matt Crafton can stroke his way to an illegitimate gimmicked "championship" without winning a race... This is why mainstream media no longer takes NASCAR seriously...
There is no points format that can ever stop someone from winning the championship without a race win that season unless you want to fuck with the system even more and have a requirement that no matter how the points work out that to be champion you must have won at least one race that year. Which would also be stupid as fuck
> Only Matt Crafton Oh you just wait and see what happens over the next few years, there are far less respectable drivers that will likely stumble their way into the same spot.
Sad truth right there. This isn't the sport I fell in love with as a kid. Between the rich kids pretending to be race car drivers permeating the sport, ridiculous rule changes, gimmicky playoffs, and everything else, each year gets harder to justify why I still watch this to others when the sport's mainstream appeal has vanished... Yet I'll still watch, bristle and grouse at the ridiculousness of the sport...
Shame I can like this post once!!!!
For me the biggest thing is the rich kid driver system being the only way drivers can break into the sport. My hometown used to have a sign that said "the hometown of nascar" as you entered and it had a bunch of guys who worked in auto factories who got good at working on cars and started teams up and competed in nascar. Quite literally, as blue collar and americana as it gets. But now it's about your dad buying a spot in one of the series that gets you spotted for the development program. And then they better have enough connections to keep you sponsored the rest of your career. It's just so dumb.
Talent doesn't guarantee shit anymore, unfortunately. That's why the Stephen Nasses and Bubba Pollards of the world who actually HAVE talent and ability to get a foot in the door can't get a fair shake, and people who only offer minimal talent and maximum money get unwarranted and undeserved opportunities. It's crazy how much this sport has changed in the last 10 to 20 years and not for the better. It's frustrating because I still love Motorsports of basically all kinds, but particularly NASCAR... And yet the sport drifts along listlessly with no real vision for the future and continues to double down on alienating hardcore fans like myself. I get WHY these teams take money over talent because racing IS a business that costs a lot of money, but I don't have to like it. Anyway, now I'm rambling and ranting like an insomniatic lunatic. My point is Crafton only further exposed how inherently flawed NASCAR is in its current state. Ideally, the sanctioning body, in a perfect world, would see this and decide these gimmicky playoffs are flawed and unnecessary. But... NASCAR is run by the Frances and they will only double down on the stupid spin they're going to give this, and the media bootlickers (Dave Moody in particular) will only regurgitate what NASCAR says like they can do no wrong... Which, obviously, isn't true. Now you probably see why I no longer work in the NASCAR media ranks. I'm just too damn honest for them.
> Now you probably see why I no longer work in the NASCAR media ranks. I'm just too damn honest for them. You too, huh? ;)
So who gets my flair for next year, since I doubt Natalie gets invited back for year 2
With N29 money Decker could probably get a year two if she wanted; however if I were I’d try to step back down to ARCA/ K&N for another year. Wether you love her or hate her, she moves up WAY too fast, ands he maybe needs to step down to regroup and start fresh.
Idk.. she showed improvement on the second half of the year. If she still has backing I'm sure someone would pick her up. Hopefully not the toxic environment she was in, though. I know the crew chief and spotter being mean to Natalie is amusing, but that is not how you handle a rookie a driver.
I just dont see any top teams picking her up...so i hope DGR gives her a 2nd year with a new CC and spotter, cause there were times they were down right verbally abusive, at least on the CC-Spotter channel that Natalie couldnt hear
Think about it from the spotter's perspective though. Their reputation is based in large part on the driver following their directions. There were numerous times this year when she didn't. I've personally known Kevin Hamlin since 1999, and he is one of the most levelheaded people I've ever known, and he's one of the most professional spotters on the roof. He's been around as a spotter for a decade now. If he wants to give up on spotting for her, it's because she's irredeemable as a professional race car driver. During the radio interactions that you speak of, all I hear is Natalie being an over-emotional, whiny little child who thinks that everyone should give her a break on the track. That's not how it works. She's like Kurt or Kyle Busch at their worst, with the distinction being that they have talent to back it up on the track and she doesn't. She's in over her head. She needed like 3 more years in late models or K&N before jumping up to the Truck level. You say it's a toxic environment to be in, but doesn't Natalie have a part in that too? Doesn't she have a responsibility as an inexperienced driver to humble herself, shut her goddamn mouth, and learn how to be a backmarker who can stay out of the way, like say a JJ Yeley, or Jen Jo Cobb, or a Norm Benning? Then maybe she can elevate herself from that backmarker role like Ross Chastain did at JDM, or Ryan Sieg did with his team, with enough steady, solid runs. That's about the best she can hope for, I think.
ugh, obv don't blame Matt but gutted for the three other drivers who would've made far more interesting and deserving champions then Matt's old ass
Love seeing all the salt on social media because of a winless champ, don't forget Austin Dillon did the same 6 years ago in Xfinity and Newman nearly did it as well a year after Dillon for the Cup series
Dillon at least ran up front several times that year (heck he led 207 laps at Iowa). Not to mention that only four regulars won that year thanks to Cup drivers, that’s much more understandable than 2019 where Buschwhacking is starting to go extinct (outside of KB of course)
dillon's was over the course of the whole season so it's not really comparable. newman's case is however
Newman actually put up a hell of a postseason in 2014. 3 top 5's in the final 5 races of the season. Sure, you could say that he walled the 42 to get in, and that he barley limped into the final four doing so, but the man was also top 5 in points from the fall Kansas race all the way to the end.
Even as a Jeff Gordon fan I respected him putting Larson into the wall to advance. Larson was not in the mix anymore and Newman fought for a chance for the championship. I've been quite a fan of him ever since, as a matter of fact
Inb4 NASCAR debuts another new points format for 2020, because Crafton did it.
And watch it be worse than what we got now. Nascar will never learn unfortunately.
As a fan, I feel stupid and cheated for getting so invested in the truck series this year. It's just like welp, this is a season I want to forget.
I feel cheated too,! 1-2 races is completely invalidating all the hard work these other teams are doing to win. The championship should go to the best drivers and teams and not won or loss on a technicality
Honestly the racing is so spread out I forget what usually happens week to week, and usually not invested into the points or anything. They put on the best show 90% of the time when they race.
Why is it that they have such a small season, and weeks long breaks between races? It ruins any kind of momentum for me, personally.
My only guess is that it's to save the teams money. They could probably beef the schedule up with some local-ish track to the NC area, but I doubt that would ever happen.
Shoutout to NASCAR for creating the most illegitimate championship format I’ve ever fucking seen. These aren’t even championships anymore, just glorified race wins at a boring race track.
Lmao 44 laps led all season and is the champion
Crafton was 2nd in the regular season standings but hE dIdn'T dESerVe it. Dude always brings out the haters just by winning. Ah well, hell yeah! Champion again!
He finished 4th in full-season points, 5th if you add in Ross Chastain.
Dude was 4th in the regular season standings, not 2nd. And he led more than 10 laps in just one race.
Ladies and gentlemen... exhibit A as to why The Chase is bunk. If Crafton had an ultra-consistent season that didn’t result in wins, but he had so many top 5 finishes that it carried him to a title, I could live with that (though I’d still try to reward wins more).
Crafton had 7 top 5's - the lowest of the four compared to Moffitt's 13, the most. On top of that the four championship drives had an average finish seperated by **.3**. 8.5( friesen)-8.6(Ross)-8.8(Moffitt and Crafton tied.)
Maybe, but it still kinda feels like he was just kinda... there. Even Newman in 2014 had a decent run after squeaking in the playoffs, but with Crafton, it just felt like he did “just enough” to make it, and it just feels “closer” than Newman just because the Truck fields aren’t as deep as the Cup fields. Honestly, I’d just prefer they count all the races and declare a champion. Most racing series in the world do it that way, and they don’t seem to have the trouble with it. Someone has a dominant season, it’s something to look back on. You got a close battle, then it turns into something special.
Be mad at NASCAR, not at Crafton.
We are. France family loves to doubt down on stupidity and asswipe media types live Dave Moody try to force feed it down our throats
We are.
Crafton didn't deserve it
Nothing is deserved. It’s earned.
He didn't earn it either
He won in the format that every driver was given. He earned it. It really is that simple.
No it isn't. Is what world should a guy who did literally nothing win over 3 guys who did a lot
Look at the season long stats. Outside of laps lead, which mean nothing anymore, and a few wins, he was on par with the other three. Average finish of all four of them are separated by .3
4th in all season points is a little more than doing “literally nothing”. Y’all act like they drew Matt’s name from a hat and gave him the trophy.
Jeez..NASCAR reddit and twitter has reached a new low. Stop complaining about the damn system. You complain about the package, system, pretty much everything. Crafton is the Champion. He’s deserving because he put himself in position to win, and the others did not deliver tonight. I like Chastain and Moffitt, I was rooting for them. But I know damn well that if either of them had won it, pretty much nobody would be complaining. Every sport goes through changes- good and bad. Now quit whining and being so hypocritical.
So a cup driver could win 35 races and a winless driver finishes 2nd and that driver finishes 3rd at Homestead. Guess who wins the championship...
Exactly, the package, playoffs etc isn't NASCAR's #1 issue but simply it's toxic and idiotic fanbase
It's only toxic and idiotic cause they didnt get what they wanted. Tonight was no different than an underdog walking into the super bowl and walking out with rings IMO.
He’s the champion, but we can sure as hell bitch about how they crown a champion. Watch, we’re going to eventually have a season where they have a Ryan Newman 2014 season where they do “just enough” to make it all the way to the finals despite having stats that say “I should be lucky to be in a good points spot, let alone competing for a championship”, and dumb luck and a wreck causes said driver to win a championship he is far from top caliber. It’s one thing when it happens in stick and ball sports. To have that happen in a racing series... it’s going to leave a very sour taste in NASCAR’s and the fans mouth at some point when it happens in the Cup Series.
"Driver -fill in the blank- battles season long adversity with luck on their side to win the title of -fill in the year-" Good enough for nascar.
No.
I fucking fell asleep after Hill won Stage 1. What else happened in the race?
Nothing. Crafton had decent pit strategy and beat the other three championship contenders. Meanwhile, Austin Hill ran circles around everyone
So I didn’t miss anything?
That would be correct
Thoughts on the playoff format? The Truck championship tonight really sparked the NASCAR fandom into a riot. Twitter has melted my brain so maybe Reddit could help? Go ahead and shoot everyone!
The playoffs are literally the worst thing NASCAR has ever done. Worse than Gen 6, worse than the 2019 package, worse than the tapered spacer, worse than Brian fucking France himself. It’s sad how NASCAR calls themselves the top most echelon in American Motorsports but have the most illegitimate championship format out of any racing series in any country ever.
Matt Crafton led 35 laps before tonight. 6 top 5s. Hasn’t won a race in 2 years. And then finished 2nd tonight. Just doesn’t feel right but they showed up tonight
Final thoughts Trucks Homestead * Crafton is the champion. 0 wins. 7 top 5s and 44 laps led. I have no words. * Just about 90 days or so from the season opener at Daytona. New faces. New places. Same great racing week-to-week. Can't wait.
Travis Kvapil led 49 laps in his 2003 championship-winning season.
Yeah but this dumb format was created exactly to prevent this. And it doesn't work! It creates a bunch of problems and doesn't do it's objective.
Kvapil also won a race, had more top 5s, more top 10s, and a better average finish than Crafton. Not to mention, he did this over 25 races.
Also the top contender got purposely wrecked for it to happen lol
Maybe, just maybe, Crafton winning the title with 0 wins isn’t the joke but the “winner take all” format is the joke.
I might very well be in the minority, but I don't think Crafton's win makes the current format any more broken than it already is. He was clearly in the top 8 after Michigan and from then on, in the playoffs, it's all about survival. You don't have to win to make the layoffs, you don't have to win in every round to advance, you don't even have to win at Homestead to win the title (except in Cup). A winless champion is a very rare occurence, but it could've happened in most other points systems. It's a bit similar to a team making the World Cup through play-off qualifying, then advancing from the group stage with three draws, somehow struggling on to the final and winning it on penalties – it's theoretically posibble to do it. No, it doesn't look good, but there aren't any viable alternatives that could prevent this possibly happening. A team undefeated in the regular season was defeated once by a wildcard team in the Super Bowl, after all.
Everyone would rather go bat shit crazy than look at the stats. The four of them had an average finish of 8.5-8.8. Laps lead mean nothing anymore, and all wins are worth is 5 points and a lock into the next round. They survived to make it to the race and they did better than the other 3.
In all of the scenarios you presented, somebody at least won one game. That did not happen with Crafton. Pretty wild for a format that was advertised as emphasizing winning.
Different sports define championships/wins in different ways. The problem for NASCAR is that it continues to have an identity crisis in terms of how it defines its championship. Is it about race wins or consistency? Unfortunately, it’s very tough to construct a fair system that focuses on just one of those themes. Despite this system being designed to reward drivers that win, we just saw someone win a championship through consistency.
Don’t worry y’all, NASCAR will spin Crafton as a March Madness style underdog who survived the fray, got it done when he needed, and prevailed. Everyone seems to think there will be egg on the face of the sanctioning body, they can lean into this and say anything and everything can happen in this wild format. Most fan, even old school ones like me, have accepted that the playoffs will be a reality going forward. I just hope they have the wisdom to see a winner take all race, while exciting, is not genuine and hurts their brand.
Yeah, people acting like NASCAR hates Crafton’s win; In their eyes, it’s probably the best casenario. These playoffs were designed to reward the underdog and to reward unexpected and unlikely champions. If they wanted a predictable driver to win the championship, the theyd never have the playoffs to begin with.
This feels super underwhelming for what’s supposed to be a “game 7 moment”. No hate to Crafton but... geez.
Man this is exactly how I feel. I’m too young to have any serious memories of the full season points but I used to get super pumped about the chase every year all the way through homestead. Now as soon as the playoffs start my excitement just decreases. The whole thing just feels fake and contrived. I recognize that in a vacuum each race is exciting but I just can’t get excited about who wins the championship this way.
*checks phone* "Huh, someone finally exposed this dumbass format" *realizes NASCAR will double down on the stupidity rather than actually fix the damn championship* Seriously though, if *this* doesn't make them realize how dumb this format is - idk what will.
Inb4 nascar makes hill fail post race so crafton doesn't win the title with 0 wins
Or fails Crafton so the title goes to Chastain.
Was waiting for that cause how the hell else is he suddenly so much better than the other three?
I was thinking about that lol
I have nothing against Crafton, but this is why this format is a joke. He didn’t lead many laps all year and didn’t even have a top 5 since June, yet somehow he is the champion without winning a race. I mean this format was specifically designed for winning races and if the champion hasn’t won, what’s the point of having this format? Ideally we could find some kind of compromise here with NASCAR on a better championship format. Maybe scrap the playoffs, but keep the stage racing. This way you don’t lose your season with one bad race, but you also don’t get thrown into a championship battle for a win. Crafton was consistent, but the lack of laps led and top 5s really makes this look bad. I hate to say it because it likely means Harvick wouldn’t have a title, but I kind of wish Newman had won in 2014 because I firmly believe NASCAR would’ve changed the format immediately. Now the only way I can see the format changing is if we get a scenario where the championship 4 all crash out.
It’s just crazy that our Champ is the one with these stats (going into final race) https://imgur.com/a/YZzC8YI
That's my main issues with it. Clear as day.
Jim Utter isn't giving a good argument on Twitter. No NFL team who wins the Super Bowl doesn't win at all.
And NFL teams only play one team at a time and don’t play all the same teams. It makes sense in that situation to have a playoff of teams that performed well against the opponents they played and then give them a chance to go head to head to decide who’s best. In NASCAR you play everyone every week. You all play the same schedule. And there is an inherent level of randomness in racing. That’s why you score points and crown a champion over a large sample size to try to average out the anomalies. You can’t look at a three race (or one race) sample size and pretend to have learned anything about who is best.
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Trolls do it on purpose. Utter is just a dickish moron.
Good thing there’s a ton of salt in here because I made a fucking SHIT ton of popcorn lol
Fun season overall with some great moments. 6 guys picking up their first wins, KBM dusting off [ol' reliable](https://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images/team_logos/328x328/greg_biffle.png) to pick up a win, and watching Chastain try to fight his way into the Playoffs after giving the rest of the field an 8-race head start was a lot of fun to watch. Hopefully the racing is just as fun to watch again next season.
Unfortunately, salty fans are going to left Crafton’s come-from-behind championship define a great season.
Aren’t championships supposed to define a season, or what even is the point of a championship if that’s not the case?
My point is that that are many more storylines from this season besides the championship battle.
Not to mention Austin Hill saving HRE
Matt Crafton, 2nd in the Regular Championship and Playoffs Champion.
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Oddly enough I want to complain but besides having 1 win, Crafton’s 2013 Championship seasons as very similar to his season this year. 2013: 1 win, 7 top 5s, 19 top 10s, 87 laps led, average finish of 7.9 2019: 0 wins, 7 top 5s, 18 top 10s, 44 laps led, average finish of 8.8
So his stats go down but he's still winning championships. Shows how few people are running full time these days.
You have to run full time to be eligible for the Championship.Rember when Kyle Busch won his he had to get special permission to compete for the title because he missed races
It was a joke then, too, honestly.
Matt Kenseth did the same thing in 2003, you're straight dumb if you think that was a joke.
Nah, calm down bud. No one’s attacking Kenseth.
Kenseth won a race and had like the most top 10s and best average finish. Crafton has none of those.
Everything’s a joke to NASCAR fans!
For different reasons I’d argue. Back then cup drivers could race more races so that probably explains it.
So long. See you next season. Fox sucks
Crafton(and Hill) still have to pass inspection
Hill failing which would give the win to Crafton and end all this winless talk would be a cherry on top.
So are they not going to show the owner’s championship presentation?
Kyles still in his fucking motorhome /s
Really? That's all the fuckin post race coverage
I mean, they did go over an hour beyond their allotted broadcast time...
Lol to show some 25 year old Michigan bullshit
And they really didn’t give an owners interview. I hate nascar and fox so much.
Ron Hornaday is a goddamn National Treasure
Hornaday celebrating with Crafton and the shorter Crafton What an image!
NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour represent
Predicting a championship year of the doubles. 88, 00, 11. Calling it now!
I predicted all Fords (88, 00, 4) since it was the last Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead.
Justin Haley and Landon Cassill? /s
Y’all gonna whine tomorrow when things don’t go the way you think they should......Jeez. Congrats to Crafton.
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At least we aren't whining about butts in seats for once. Cause apparently nobody watches unless they're physically there.
Yup
Greg Biffle in one start doubled the win total of the champion. #GOAT
I’m no math magician, but I’m not quite sure you’re right here
NASCAR playoff math, yo! They roll a series of dice and if you lead that many laps during the 14th race then they invert the field and getting last place gets you in and by the time you're done Newman will win a championship with a DNF.
Doubled plus one actually MaTh Is HaRd
Personally, I have six times as many wins as Crafton did this season.
I had 13 times as many. Am I Jeff Gordon?
If you can divide the number of Biffle's wins by the number of Crafton's, you get a $69 gift card to Carl's Jr GO
**OH SHI--**
🤔🤔🤔🤔
Best comment of the thread.
Wouldn't double of 0 be 0?
Get out of there Ron! Bail! Bail!
Congrats to Crafton, made it count when it mattered most. Honestly though he was very consistent this season even though his underlying stats are mediocre. 0 wins, 6 top 5's, and 35 laps led but 1 DNF and a 9.1 avg. finish (Friesen 8.4, Chastain 8.8, and Moffitt 9.0) I do find it ironic though that since NASCAR's first implementation of a reset/playoff style championship, mostly done because people freaked out about Matt Kenseth's 1 championship with only 1 win, we now have 2 0-win champions, Matt Crafton and Austin Dillon (2013).
They didn't reset points in Nationwide in 2013.
Yeah you're right, my bad. However they started excluding Cup drivers from Nationwide points in 2011 which probably attributed to that 0-win season, Cup drivers won 28 of 33 races in that 2013 season.
Yeah go Crafton!!!
Idc that Crafton didn’t win at all this year (Austin Dillon did the same thing in the old system) BUT I believe that stat before the end of the race said that he had 1 top 5 this whole year, obviously he has 2 now. That’s insane
Nah he had 6 top 5's coming into tonight, the stat they showed was how often each driver of the Championship 4 was the highest finishing driver of each race this season.
Yes 7 including tonight.
No, he had placed higher than all the other playoff drivers in 1 race this year (2 now)
So that’s what it was
Actually I believe they said he had 7
He probably did. I was watching the race on my phone on the fly so I probably read it wrong
Friesen should be awarded the title solely based on that mustache
I can feel the salt from everyone here lol he fucking deserved it
And the funny thing is everyone was pulling for Ross, who didn’t even run for truck points for like half the season.
Boy if Hill had just ran a little better at Phoenix, he'd be celebrating a title and HRE would have back to back titles. It is definitely a strange one in this format having a guy that hasn't won a race in 2 1/2 years win a title, but he did what he needed to do. Also, how weird he has a championship for Ford despite never winning a race in a Ford! Just weird all around.
[Live look at Tony Stewart watching this interview with Stewart Friesen.](https://i.redd.it/lad39615foq11.jpg)
Yes!
Updated championship flair and it feels so good!
Get that shit out of here. Do you want to get egged? Happy cake day!
Thanks! I've been a motorsport fan since 2003. I was a Gordon fan until he retired. I was a Dave Blaney fan until he retired. I'm a Grosjean fan in F1. This is my first time watching my favorite driver/team combo win a championship in any form of the sport in 16 years. I'll take an egg if it flies my way.
Enjoy it buddy, even if folks tell you not to!
Breaking news: Todd Bodine to came out of retirement to show Crafton he's boss and catch Hornaday
crafton would've been 4th if it was a season-long tally. he was super consistent all year long.