{"id":252648,"date":"2025-10-31T16:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252648\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:22:09","slug":"nascar-cup-series-championship-race-could-mark-the-end-of-final-four-format","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252648\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Cup Series Championship race could mark the end of Final Four format"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NASCAR Cup Series Championship race between Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe and Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Kyle Larson and William Byron \u201cmight be the end of the one-race championship and possibly the 10-race playoffs,\u201d according to Ellen Horrow of USA TODAY. NASCAR has formed a committee with its stakeholders to \u201cexamine the current format and explore changes or perhaps a massive overhaul of the system following complaints for years from both drivers and fans.\u201d NASCAR\u2019s goal when it introduced the current format in 2014 was to \u201cprovide \u2018Game 7\u2019 moments comparable to the big team sports.\u201d And while there has \u201ccertainly been plenty of on-track excitement\u201d in the past decade as four drivers \u201cduked it out for a title\u201d each year, the \u201ccounterargument has been that a winner-take-all race not only dilutes the full 35 races that came before it but even the nine playoff races that precede the championship race.\u201d As these drivers \u201cseek to etch their name in history with a Cup Series title, one could make history in another way: the last driver to win a championship in this format\u201d (USA TODAY, 10\/30<\/a>).<\/p>\n

CATCH YA LATER: In Phoenix, Cole Cusumano wrote four drivers \u201cshare a date with destiny in the desert\u201d by being crowned the 2025 champion of their respective series. And it is NASCAR\u2019s farewell to Arizona as its site of the \u201cfinale — for now.\u201d NASCAR recently announced it will be moving its \u201cChampionship Weekend\u201d back to Homestead-Miami Speedway<\/a> — the previous site of the finale for 18 years — as the sport \u201cbraces for a game-changing overhaul\u201d in 2026. NASCAR has gone on record saying that the site of the finale \u201cwill rotate and Phoenix will be among the tracks to host in the future.\u201d Nov. 2\u2019s championship race is also \u201ctrending toward a sixth sell-out\u201d in as many times hosting, with more than 70% of ticketholders traveling from outside Arizona. According to Track President Latasha Causey, all 50 states, 21 nations and five continents \u201cwill be represented in the grandstands and throughout the infield\u201d to witness who wins the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship on Sunday at 3pm (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 10\/29<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASCAR Cup Series Championship race between Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe and Hendrick Motorsports\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,81630,12716,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-252648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fan-experience","11":"tag-motorsports","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}