All right, everybody, welcome back to another edition of The Teardown.

My name is Jeff Block, and I'm along with my co-worker, George Bianchi.

We are motorsports writer for the Athletic, and we are here at Phoenix Raceway to discuss this season finale championship weekend, which is just wrapped up here with Ryan Blaney, YRB, becoming P1, the champ.

How about that?

Not something that we saw coming, certainly, since neither of us even had him in our final

four.

Confession time?

I think I may have him out in the first round.

In the first round?

Yeah.

I think I did.

I let's go look.

But, you know, this is something I've been thinking about since the race ended a couple hours look. But, you know, this is, this is something I've been thinking about since the race ended

a couple hours ago.

And, you know, this is, I've been trying to figure out how I want to say this or put

this into words.

But this sort of encapsulates what the playoffs are and have become.

You know, this is the 10th year of this format.

And for so long, you know, there was many instances early on where pretty much,

even though it was one race playoff and all the stuff, like, you pretty much go, yeah,

well, the guy that won was pretty much like the best driver of the season anyway.

Then, like, ultimately, like, I'd almost say up until like the best driver of the season anyway then like ultimately like

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