Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott will contend for the regular season championship Sunday at Darlington Raceway, marking the first time three drivers are in contention to win it at the regular season finale.
In four of the last seven years, the regular season champion was decided going into the final race before the playoffs. In the other three seasons, only two drivers were mathematically capable of claiming the top prize. Fans will have two races to watch this weekend — one at the top of the point standings and one to determine the final playoff contenders.
Why does the regular season championship matter so much?
Playoff points are added for each new playoff round, making them a recurring bonus. Drivers earn five playoff points for winning a race and one for winning a stage.
In addition, the regular season champion earns a 15-point bonus. The runner-up gets 10 points. The third-place driver earns eight points and each driver below him gets one fewer point. Only the top-10 drivers earn an end-of-season bonus.
Playoff points can help a driver with a middling playoff performance (or just bad luck) make it through to the Championship 4. That’s why the race at the top is so important.
How tight is the regular season competition?
The 2024 season is the tightest regular season competition since the current playoff format began in 2017. Points leader Reddick, with 823 points, tops Larson by 17 and Elliott by 18 points.
Last year, the first- and second-place drivers (Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin) went into the final regular season race separated by 39 points. Truex was 76 points ahead of third-place William Byron last year, eliminating Byron from any possibility of winning the regular season title.
The 2024 and 2023 seasons are the only two in which fewer than 100 points separated the first- and third-place drivers going into the final race of the regular season.
Although Larson is second in the point standings and has the most wins — four — of any driver this year, he ran one fewer race. If Larson had raced in the Coca-Cola 600 and earned his average of 33.5 points per race this year, he would have 839 or 840 points and be leading the competition. There would still be a three-way race for the top spot, but Larson would have a greater edge.
Reddick’s total of 823 points is the smallest of any leader going into the final regular season race under this format, Last year, leader Truex had 861 points, the second-smallest amount. No driver has scored more than 922 points after 25 races in the Next Gen car.
The largest number of points accrued by a driver going into the last race of the regular season was in 2020, when Kevin Harvick accumulated 1,041 points. That put Harvick 134 points — more than two full races — ahead of second-place Hamlin and 160 points ahead of third-place Brad Keselowski.
How close are the rest of the top drivers?
Because everyone finishing in the top 10 of the regular season gets playoff points, each position is critical. In the graph below, the gap between drivers is equal to the number of points between them. This provides a better picture of the race than you get from a bar chart or a table.
In 2024, 11 drivers are within 165 points of the leader. Last year, only six drivers were within the same distance of leader Truex. In 2018, only three drivers were within 165 points of the leader.
The tightness of the race persists down the points standings. Only 80 points separate the top five drivers this year compared to 140 points last year. The largest difference between the top five drivers at this point in the schedule was in 2018: 220 points.
The three years competing in the Next Gen car have the smallest points difference from the first-place driver to the 10th-place driver. The 2024 season leads with a 147-point gap between Reddick and Ty Gibbs. In 2023, the gap was 168 points and in 2022, 258 points separated the first and 10th drivers.
Even the gap from first to 15th is smaller this year: 237 points separate the top 15 drivers, compared to 295 points last year. The maximum difference in the top 15 was in 2018, when 452 points separated first from 15th.
This graph also emphasizes how damaging the Hamlin’s 50-point penalty is. Without that penalty, he’d be at 762 points and rank fourth. Hamlin will lose not just the 10 playoff points he was penalized, but the four or five he’ll miss by finishing the regular season in a lower points position.
Reddick and Elliott cannot let Larson win the regular season.
The graph below shows the top 10 drivers in playoff points for the 2024 season.
Despite missing an entire race, Larson has the most playoff points this year with 28. Reddick has only 13 and Elliott six playoff points. Consider two scenarios:
If Larson wins the regular-series title, he enters the playoffs with a minimum of 43 playoff points. Winning both stages at Darlington and the race would give him 50 playoff points. Even a second-place finish leaves Reddick with just 23 playoff points. Elliott finishing second would give him just 16 playoff points. That puts Reddick and Elliott at a huge disadvantage not only to Larson but to Christopher Bell also.
If Reddick wins Darlington and both stages and Larson comes in second, Reddick enters the playoffs with at least 35 points, while Larson would have 38. That cuts Reddick’s playoff point deficit from more than 20 points to three points.
Although past end-of-regular-season races have focused on who makes the playoffs, the race for the regular season championship will have a big impact on who eventually becomes the 2024 Champion.