jam cars

Chase for the Cup - the playoffs of NASCAR are here!


I don't get it.

In other sports, qualifying for the playoffs means participating in the playoffs, and consequently, not qualifying for the playoffs means not participating. Years ago, when I first heard that NASCAR was implementing a playoffs to determine the champion for the season, I thought how cool and started imagining races with only so many cars on the track.. now races will be different. Imagine - a playoffs in car racing - that shakes things up!

Then I watched one of these playoffs races... whaaat? Apparently there were the same number of cars. And when I read through the horizontal scrolling which indicated who was in what place, the only thing I could find was certain drivers had a different color next their name. As it turns out, those were the drivers that were racing for the championship. But what about all the other drivers... what were they for? Were they just on the track to be jam cars??