In Xfinity, the first disaster struck, as Connor Zilisch, a 10-race winner who dominated throughout the season and was clearly the deserving champion, was passed by Jesse Love, who won the race and the Xfinity title.

First let me say good for Jesse, who is a talented driver who likely has a bright future in Cup at RCR, and stepped up when he needed to in order to claim the title and win the race and the championship trophy. This is not a slight to him in any way.

But even Love has to realize that the title should have gone to Zilsch, who was statistically dominant in every category this year, and won 8 more races and had 11 more top-5s than Love (and led 700+ more laps).

This championship result was Exhibit A (alongside many examples from past seasons) on why the one-race finale is a system that often cheats deserving champions out of their glory. Love will be in the record books, but true fans know that Zilisch was the deserving champion in 2025.

Hamlin heartbreak on Sunday

For Exhibit B on how gut-wrenchingly terrible this system has become, we just had to wait one day. On Sunday, after 20 years of elite driving and multiple close calls, Denny Hamlin was three laps away from claiming his first Cup title. Then Final Four driver William Byron blew a tire, hit the wall, and a caution came out. The end result: Hamlin pitted to get four tires, Kyle Larson came in to get two tires, and Larson finished three spots higher and won the championship.

It’s an understatement to say that this was a brutal reality for Hamlin, and while you can blame his crew chief for the four-tire call (I was expecting Hamlin to take two tires for the final shootout), there’s no denying that it’s nonsensical to let the decision of who the champion is of your premier series is be decided by a two-lap shootout. In a sense, the 35 prior races, and the entirety of the Phoenix race up to that overtime and those two laps, meant nothing.

Hamlin led over 200 laps on Sunday at Phoenix and was the dominant car. Larson led zero laps, but he finished higher than Hamlin, so he won the title. I can’t think of a dumber way to choose a champion than that. Thankfully, since reaction to this system is almost completely negative at that point, all signs are that this system is going away staring in 2026, and I don’t think anyone will miss this era.

Tire issues played major role

So much of Sunday’s race was decided by tire failures, which is a terrible way to determine who is your champ. All four title contenders had tire failures at least once during the race.

Not sure if Goodyear is to blame, or the teams and how they set up the car, or NASCAR for how they designed the car in the first place, but between them all, they created a terrible situation for the final race of the year. A tire blowing with three laps remaining shouldn’t determine your champion.

In theory, the one race for a champ would always feature four deserving contenders, but as the Truck and Xfinity seasons proved, when one driver is dominant all year, it’s ridiculous to say that an 11-race winner and a 1-race winner are all of a sudden even in points. It eliminates the meaning of most of the season.

What's next?

What will replace this playoff format if changes do get implemented?

What comes next is still to be determined, but it would be hard to come up with something worse than the current system, which arguably hasn’t featured the best driver/team winning the championship in a majority of years its been in use. Even worse, the playoffs did nothing to grow the sport’s popularity, as ratings are the going further and further in the tank.

There are indications a 3-3-4 playoff system will be implemented, meaning the final four drivers would complete at Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead, and the champion determined by a combined result from those four races. This is better than a one-race setup like we saw for the past dozen years, but probably won’t be popular still.

Other alternatives include:

— Going back to the 10-race “Chase” first implemented back in 2004
— Going back to a 36-race season with no playoff or “Chase” whatsoever, which is what most fans are vocally supporting

Other possible questions likely to come up this offseason include addressing the fate of stage racing/stage points, the green-white-checkered rule, and the “win and you’re in” playoff rule.

I’m hopeful we can get an answer from NASCAR soon on what’s to come, and they don’t wait until February to announce changes, but time will tell. Timing could potentially depend on outcome of the 23XI/Front Row Motorsports lawsuit against NASCAR, which will proceed this offseason unless there is a settlement.

Between the lawsuit back and forth all season, and the depressing nature of this final weekend which left most fans in a foul mood, the 2025 season has been a pretty major letdown — albeit with some great racing delivered at times in the process.

I choose to be hopeful that the sport can right the ship in 2026, that this lawsuit gets settled or decided in a way that’s fair to teams moving forward, and that this current playoff system gets send to the trash bin so we are crowning the most worthy champions each year.

And next year, when there’s a more legitimate battle for the title going on at Homestead (a track which should offer a better finale than Phoenix in my opinion), fans can actually enjoy it instead of feeling a sense of dread about what the sport has become.

Follow AutoTechReviews on Instagram at @autotechreviews, and on Twitter @AutoTechReview. Follow Matt Myftiu on Twitter @MattMyftiu.