Harrison Burton deserves playoff berth, but is performance standard necessary?

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

Harrison Burton deserves to compete in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. The rules state he just needed to win a race and that’s what he did.

Does it matter that his average finish is 25.9, worse than any other driver (Zane Smith is next at 24.6) and five spots worse than Austin Cindric’s 20.9, the next-worst among race-winning drivers?

Does it matter that he has 13 lead-lap finishes out of 25 races during the season?

Does it matter that his 306 points are less than half of Bubba Wallace (637), who currently is the driver with the most points on the outside looking in?

No. Because the rules are the rules.

But it should matter. There should be at least some standard of driver performance to get into the playoffs.

NASCAR used to have a rule that a driver had to be top-30 in points to make the playoffs with a win. NASCAR removed the rule prior to the 2023 season when drivers in 2022 close to that cutoff threatened to win some races and it wanted those drivers to have the opportunity to make the playoffs.

Maybe too many just shrugged that change off considering there hasn’t been an upset of Burton’s magnitude in the first 10 seasons of playoff racing. But NASCAR should go back to having a minimum for a playoff berth.

I’d like it to be an average of 20th, which would be 442 points in the regular season (and that’s without stage points). Right now, the first 23 drivers in the standings have that many points and Noah Gragson would have it if not for a penalty earlier this year.

If that seems too harsh, how about some sort of play-in, much like the NCAA’s First Four for men’s basketball?

Maybe take any winner under that cutoff and then, let’s say, three drivers who were best in points but didn’t get in and let them have a match race for the spots available to fill the 16-driver playoff field.

So in this instance, it potentially would be Burton, Wallace, Ross Chastain and Kyle Busch (all drivers with potential to make a deep run in the playoffs) attempting to race their way in. Do it at Charlotte early in the week before the playoff opener at Darlington. Or do it at Darlington middle of the week before the playoffs begin. The event could be formatted to give race-winners an advantage with either starting position or just not to have to finish last.

There will be some who argue about why complain now and not when the rule was changed? Sometimes it is hard to know whether you like or dislike something until it happens. Even when Austin Dillon won at Richmond, it didn’t seem as crazy to think of him in the playoffs although not debatable that he hasn’t had a season with consistent strong performance.

Kudos to Burton for winning Daytona. He earned the victory, running a great race in avoiding the accidents and making all the right moves in the final two laps.

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But no one will dispute that he has not been a factor in many races this year. And while the win-and-in adds excitement to the individual races, playoffs without drivers such as Wallace, Chastain and Busch potentially could impact the excitement of several playoff races.

Then again, there could be an argument that Burton in the playoffs is much like a 16th seed in the NCAA tournament and at Atlanta, he could pull off another upset. Sure, it could happen. He will have nothing to lose in the playoffs and it keeps Cinderella stories alive.

The question is when talking about winners and losers — does the sport and its fans win having an automatic bid with no performance standard or does it lose that drivers who have performed more often than not during the year don’t have a shot at for a deep playoff run?

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.