What’s Happening?

This past weekend, Tyler Reddick locked himself into the Championship 4 with a walk-off win at Homestead-Miami Speedway. With the win, he became the sixth regular-season champion to advance to the Final 4 since it was introduced in 2017. But just because a driver wins the regular season doesn’t mean they’ll hoist the Cup at season’s end. In fact, the recent history of the regular-season champion has been rather tumultuous. Whether its due to poor playoff performance or an elimination, there is a case that the regular-season champion is a curse rather than a blessing. So let’s go over as to why that’s the case.

• The NASCAR Cup Series regular season consists of the first 26 races. The points leader at the end wins the regular-season championship, which awards a bonus of 15 playoff points to go into the playoffs.
• The regular-season champion was introduced in 2017 as part of the addition of playoff points and stage racing. Martin Truex Jr. won the regular season title that year en route to his first Cup Series championship.
• Tyler Reddick won the regular-season title this season, just one point ahead of Kyle Larson, who missed the Coca-Cola 600 after running the rain-delayed Indianapolis 500.

The Playoff Numbers

To look into the curse, first, we have to look into the numbers. Let’s start off with the wins. Since 2017, the regular-season champion has won 15-out-of-78 races in the playoffs (about 23%). That’s a good percentage of races won for the best driver of the regular season. However, more than half are taken up by just two drivers. Martin Truex Jr., with four wins in 2017, and Kyle Larson, with five wins in 2021. Along with Kyle Busch in 2018, they are the only regular-season champs with multiple wins in the playoffs. In fact, five out of the eight regular-season champions either won only once or went winless in the final 10 races.

Winning isn’t everything. The majority of regular-season champions make the final four, regardless of how many times they won. Since 2017, the champ has only won his way into Phoenix three times. Looking at the numbers, the five regular-season champs in the Gen-6 era had a great playoff en route to their titles. However, since the Next-Gen Era began, the regular-season champion has taken a massive drop. Combined, the regular-season champion has only seven top-10s and two wins.

Winning the Championship

Numbers and stats get a driver to the Championship 4, but what happens when they get there? Out of all eight regular-season champions, only three have won the Cup at the final race of the season. Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, and Kyle Larson are the only ones to win the regular season championship and the Cup Series championship. That doesn’t mean it’s their fault. With a winner-takes-all final race, it leaves Phoenix more of a lottery rather than the best driver all year winning the title. Even in the case of Truex and Larson, neither were the fastest cars and relied on fast pit stops to win the race and the Cup.

So what went wrong for the other five title winners? In 2018, Busch didn’t have the pace that Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. had at Homestead. Even after taking the lead on the final pit stop, it wasn’t enough to stay ahead of the No. 22 and No. 78. In 2020, Harvick had his infamous Martinsville meltdown, where on the final lap, he tried to turn Busch but crashed out.

As we mentioned earlier, the regular-season champions of the Next-Gen Era have had a rough playoffs. While Chase Elliott made the Championship 4 in 2022, he was nowhere near the No. 22 and, on a restart, got into it with Ross Chastain, relegating him to a 28th-place finish. In 2023, Martin Truex Jr. was almost eliminated in the Round of 16 and was knocked out in the Round of 8 after not winning a race in the playoffs, the first time a regular-season champion went winless in the playoffs.

Tyler Reddick has a chance to break the Next-Gen curse. While his playoffs haven’t been great by any means, with only two top-10s, his Homestead win was a big statement that he and the No. 45 team are ready to win a championship. The question now is, will he be the first regular-season champion to win the Cup Series championship in the Next-Gen Era? Only time will tell, but it wasn’t an easy road to get here for Reddick. Winning the regular-season championship is important. The bonus points equal three race wins and can make or break a season. But at what cost?

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