Kevin Harvick, the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion, and current NASCAR on FOX television analyst did not mince words about this weekend’s championship races.
He said it would be ‘embarrassing’ if Corey Heim and Connor Zilisch did not win the Truck Series and Xfinity Series championships, respectively.
“Here’s what I think is interesting,” Harvick said on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour. “When you look at Corey Heim’s stats compared to everybody else — if he doesn’t win this championship, it’s going to be a nuclear meltdown, if they don’t change the points to the correct way at the end of the year. It shouldn’t even be a question of who the champion is in the Truck Series. It shouldn’t be a question of who the champion is in the Xfinity Series.
“If Connor Zilisch and Corey Heim don’t win these championships, it’s exactly why we don’t need the system we have. It’s embarrassing.”
Heim has set a NASCAR Truck Series record with 11 wins this season in 24 starts, with a 5.5 average finish. Similarly, Zilisch has 10 wins in 31 Xfinity Series starts and a 8.2 average finish, records for a rookie in the division.
However, like the Cup Series, championships are currently decided in the final four ‘best finisher take all’ format and if Heim and Zilisch do not best their contemporaries, they don’t get credit for a championship.
It’s a format this is poised to change after this season after a year of a debate that included NASCAR forming a committee to debate what the Sanctioning Body should do next.
“The right change is to make as many points matter as possible for as long as possible,” Harvick said. “My opinion doesn’t really matter to the committee. It’s not going to be made by the masses, as far as how the point system is. It’s just going to be laid out. I think that my biggest thing is if we’re going to have a playoff, you better make the points matter as much as possible or these people are going to eat you up.”
But right now, he says the status quo doesn’t work for him, just because it’s possible that Heim and Zilisch could even lose it this weekend.
“Having the biggest sample size that you can in those playoffs for the points, you better have that,” he said. “Because if those two guys don’t win the championship, it’s an embarrassment. Corey Heim has a hundred more points than the next guy. … I can tell you, if Tyler Ankrum wins the championship and Corey Heim doesn’t, it’s embarrassing to the Truck Series.”
Harvick said it would cause ‘a nuclear meltdown’ if someone else wins these two championships.
Meanwhile, his co-host, Dylan Smith, does not agree.
“In every other form of sport, when an underdog beats a titan, everyone is so freaking excited,” Mamba Smith said. “That’s what this country is built on.”
Harvick’s rebuttal was that NASCAR isn’t a one-on-one sport like stick-and-ball contests.
“You got to remember in sports, they don’t play each other every week,” Harvick said. “You all have an even chance against each other every week to gain as many points as possible. I think the sample size of what we have is much different than other sports. I think that you have good teams, and you have bad teams, but I just don’t understand how you crown a champion that may not even win a race.”
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