Kevin Harvick warns of a “nuclear meltdown” if this NASCAR driver doesn’t win a championship

Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick criticized the current playoff format on the latest episode of the Happy Hour podcast. He claimed it would be a "nuclear meltdown" if Truck Series driver Corey Heim and Xfinity Series driver Connor Zilisch don't win the titles this season.Harvick pointed out that the duo has 21 combined victories in both series, with Heim earning 11 and Zilisch having ten wins. Kevin Harvick further argued that it should not come down to a single race to declare the champion when a driver outperformed his rivals throughout the season. He explained [00:00]:"When you look at Corey Heim's stats compared to everybody else, if he doesn't win this championship, it's going to be a nuclear meltdown. If they don't change the points the correct way at the end of the year, it shouldn't even be a question who the champion is in Trucks, right? It should not be a question who the champion is in Xfinity. So if Connor Zilisch and Corey Heim don't win these championships, it's exactly why we don't need the system we have.""My biggest thing is, if we are going to have playoffs, you better make the points matter as much as possible. People eat up having a bigger sample for the points because if one of those guys doesn’t win, it’s an embarrassment. Corey Heim has 100 more points," Kevin Harvick added.The Championship 4 race for the Truck Series is scheduled for October 3 at Phoenix Raceway. The 200-lap championship race for the Xfinity Series on November 1 at the one-mile Arizona-based track."I think the 24 definitely underperformed": Kevin Harvick called out HMS Ace for his postseason performanceKevin Harvick criticized the Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron for his poor performance in the 2025 postseason on his podcast. The former Stewart-Haas Racing driver pointed out that Byron's teammate, Kyle Larson, has been performing significantly better and praised him for the same.The HMS driver has been struggling since the first race of the playoffs at Darlington Raceway. Byron has been struggling to keep up with his playoff-qualified rivals. Harvick also highlighted that the two-time Daytona 500 champion could have lost his chance to advance to the next round of playoffs at Kansas.However, William Byron somehow finished the race in P9 and moved to the Round of Eight playoffs. Reflecting on the same, Kevin Harvick stated:"I think the 24 definitely underperformed. Their speed has been off. We went to St. Louis and thought, "Maybe they found something," but now it's kind of flip-flopped. Now the 5 car seems to be the one with more speed than the 24. They had a big miss at Kansas but managed to grind out a decent finish despite having no speed there. It was a big flop at Kansas. They're another team you just don't know about; maybe they’ll show up at Vegas, maybe not. They were awful at Kansas."William Byron switched gears in the last race of the playoffs held at Martinsville Speedway last Sunday. He dominated the Xfinity 500 and won after taking pole position, leading 304 laps. His victory gave him a seat in the Cup Series Championship 4 race scheduled for November 2 at Phoenix Raceway.