NASCAR playoffs

The idea was to give NASCAR, which was becoming in many areas the fourth-largest sport (after Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA and surpassing in some regions the NHL) attention during baseball's road to the World Series and the outset of the pro and college football, NHL, and NBA seasons.

NASCAR indicated that the 2003 championship outcome was not the driving factor in establishing the playoffs, as they had been considering adjustments to the points system to put more emphasis on winning races since 2000.

"The Matt Kenseth Rule" more properly refers to the NASCAR numerical scoring system that was also implemented for the 2004 season, which increased the points awarded to race winners, thus emphasizing winning more and consistency less than in previous years.

However, the coincidence of new playoff system in 2004 and Kenseth's 2003 championship led to the issues being linked, including by NASCAR officials in interviews and press releases.

Even more radical changes to the qualifying criteria, and to the format of the playoffs itself, were announced for the 2014 Sprint Cup Series.

The current version of the playoff system was announced by NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France on January 23, 2017.

Brian France explained why NASCAR made the changes to the chase: "The adjustments taken [Monday] put a greater emphasis on winning races.

An exception to this rule was in 2013, where the chase field was expanded to 13 drivers for that season only as the result of a match fixing scandal.

With seven laps remaining in the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway, Clint Bowyer went into a spin, forcing a caution.

That Bowyer's spin had been deliberate had been further suggested by several things: the first was radio communications on Brian Vickers' team with his spotter, MWR general manager Ty Norris, telling him to pit under green on the restart, and that the audio on Bowyer's radio showed crew chief Brian Pattie pointing out Newman taking the lead and then asking a suspicious string of questions mere seconds before Bowyer spun.

As this penalty was applied to pre-chase point totals, it knocked Truex out of the Wildcard spot and put Newman in his place.

Had the ruse not happened, Newman was on point to win the race, automatically becoming the second wild card and bumping Truex.

The ruse also resulted in a second controversy when radio transmissions were discovered suggesting that Front Row Motorsports and Penske Racing had struck a deal for David Gilliland to give up a spot on the track for Joey Logano, allowing Logano to race his way into the final lock-in position by one point over Jeff Gordon.

NASCAR chairman Brian France has always had the power to expand the chase field in exceptional circumstances, and decided to invoke it in this case.

In France's view, Gordon had been put at an "unfair disadvantage" due to Penske and Front Row's collusion, as well as MWR's improper instructions to have Vickers pit.

Had this not happened, France said, Gordon would have been in the chase by taking the last lock-in position, while Logano would have received one Wild Card position due to him being ahead of Truex and Newman in points, and Kasey Kahne would have taken the other Wild Card regardless of the race outcome as he had two wins entering Richmond.

This new playoff system instituted three "cuts" where drivers are eliminated from title contention as the chase progresses.

Then the "Eliminator Round" involved axing 50% of the chase grid with the final cut, cutting the new bottom four drivers after the penultimate race at Phoenix, leaving the top four drivers to have their point totals reset to 5,000 so that they are tied for the final race at Homestead-Miami for the title run.

"[11] To identify the drivers within the 43-car field that were still involved in each round of the chase, NASCAR designated various cosmetic changes in 2014: for these drivers, their cars' roof numbers, windshield header, front splitters, and fascia are colored yellow, and the chase logo appears on the front quarter panel.

For the Championship 4 (final race), there are no bonus points involved, and the highest finishing driver of the 4 is declared the champion.

The previous championship format is maintained, but a few changes were added to the design touches on the cars involved in the playoffs.

For the 2018 season, NASCAR collaborated with the Race Team Alliance and Twitter to unveil customized hashtags and emojis for the top 16 drivers entering the playoffs.

[26][27] Ten different drivers have won the NASCAR Cup Series championship since the playoff system was implemented in 2004.

Below are the hypothetical champions based on only regular points standings after last season race if no playoff format had been implemented.

This section is only to demonstrate the impact of the playoffs on the outcome of the championship in comparison to regular points standings.

Kyle Busch's 2015 Cup Series title, and NASCAR's decision to grant him waiver preventing him from missing the playoffs, was criticized due to the fact he missed 11 races during the season due to an injury, something which would have prevented him from winning the championship in non-playoff and earlier Chase playoff points formats.

[59] Similar waivers were granted to Ryan Newman, who was out following his 2020 Daytona 500 crash and Matt Kenseth, who replaced Kyle Larson after he was released from Chip Ganassi Racing following a live streaming controversy in 2020, although both failed to qualify for that year's playoffs.

Following the 2024 Coca-Cola 600, controversy persisted regarding Larson's eligibility for the waiver after he missed the race entirely when weather issues at both the Indianapolis 500 (resulting in the race being delayed by several hours) and Coca-Cola 600 (which was called off after it rained out in the second stage) resulted in Larson not driving a single lap of the NASCAR portion of the Double Duty;[60] NASCAR ultimately approved the waiver.

During the ESPN broadcast of 2009 Dickies 500, the vast majority of the race's commentary was spent talking about Jimmie Johnson despite the fact he had crashed out on lap 3 and finished 38th.

In addition, following the addition of eliminations and automatic playoff berth from winning a race in 2014, critics have noted that the format encouraged more aggressive driving in order to claim a race win necessary to qualify for (or advance to the next round of) the playoffs,[62] as well as encouraging teams to manipulate penultimate races to increase the odds of championship victory, as demonstrated at 2013 Federated Auto Parts 400 (which occurred in the pre-elimination format) and 2024 Xfinity 500.