“It’s going to be a nuclear meltdown if they don’t change the points the correct way,” Kevin Harvick said a few days ago. A debate about NASCAR’s one-race championship format has been raging for the past year, with people pressuring the playoff committee to bring about positive changes for 2026. But before the new year could arrive, we are all set for another wild battle on social media, after the latest showdown at the NASCAR Phoenix weekend.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series ran its season finale at the one-mile short track with much pomp and zest. Three JR Motorsports drivers were positioned against one Richard Childress Racing driver. Yet one narrative stuck out in fans’ minds, that of Connor Zilisch’s, and it resulted in heartbreak.

Xfinity’s NASCAR Phoenix event fans the flames

Connor Zilisch, a Trackhouse Racing driver flying the JR Motorsports banner in Xfinity, was the ultimate contender this season. The rookie driver picked up 10 trophies, 20 top fives, and 23 top tens. If we were following the old full-season points format, Zilisch would have won the crown anyway. However, the present format left his title chances suspended until the NASCAR Phoenix weekend. And sadly, his No. 88 Chevrolet turned out to be weaker than Jesse Love’s No. 2. And the latter hoisted the championship flag after toppling Zilisch’s lead on lap 176 and leading all the way to the end.

Jesse Love choked up with emotion on Victory Lane, hailing his team. But even he acknowledged, “Hats off to the 88 team and Connor for all they’ve done this year.” Inside Trackhouse Racing, however, the emotions were a lot more grim. Team owner Justin Marks took the chance to shoot down NASCAR’s format that dashed Connor Zilisch’s title hopes. “Because our sport has a big element of luck, and we’re driving machinery, I think a one-race championship was a great experiment, and it was an interesting journey, but I don’t think that’s where we should go from here on out.”

This resonates with a resounding demand across the NASCAR garage. Veterans like Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Denny Hamlin have all clamored for tweaks to the cutthroat elimination format. And Justin Marks had clarified his opinion even before Connor Zilisch faced heartbreak during the NASCAR Phoenix weekend. He had observed that although the playoff format is okay, the one-race format needs to change. “I’m not a fan of the one-race championship, just because you don’t want a champion to ever luck into a championship or somebody (deserving) to lose it.”

Connor Zilisch’s dream of a championship in his rookie-of-the-year season fell apart during the final 42-lap green-flag run. His despair was audible in his words: “You work all year long, and you bust your ass for 33 weeks, and I feel like we’ve done the best job we could all year long, and we just didn’t have it today. I’m so proud of this team. We have nothing to hang our heads about, but, yeah, this one’s going to sting.”

Meanwhile, one of his teammates also had a great reason to lament about the outcome.

Losing a massive advantage

Almost throughout the NASCAR Phoenix race, one driver was in the spotlight. That was none other than Justin Allgaier. He started in P5 and worked up to P1 by lap 63. Fans and peers alike assumed that the 2024 Xfinity Series champion was here to defend his crown at all costs. He amassed a lead of more than three seconds and won the second stage. However, after the lap 152 caution, Allgaier lost the pit road race to Jesse Love and dropped back to 4th position. After that, he could not regain his speed and finished 5th behind pole winner Brandon Jones in fourth.

Justin Allgaier reflected on the race while scratching his head. “Last set of tires definitely did not kind of sit well with the car, right? It just seemed to be a lot looser there after that last caution. I think some of that, you look at track position, I don’t know, I kind of look back at the restart there, I don’t really know what I could have done any different. Maybe just having to be a little more aggressive on the restart, got the tires hot. Really disappointing. Jesse had come on there at the end of that run before the caution came out. It was really good. I knew that. I wanted to really have a good restart and be able to battle it out with him. Just didn’t work out.”

Clearly, two JR Motorsports drivers are clutching their heads in despair after the latest NASCAR Phoenix race. Up next is the championship race for the Cup Series, which is Connor Zilisch’s destination for 2026.