It’s been the Chevrolet show throughout the first three races of the season. All three points races in the Cup Series have been won by Chevy drivers, and, of the nine points-paying races across all three of NASCAR’s national series, a Chevrolet driver has been in victory lane in all but one.
That leaves Ford and Toyota drivers hungry heading into Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500, at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, at Phoenix Raceway.
Two drivers with as good a shot as any came up short the last time the series visited Phoenix for the championship finale. Christopher Bell crashed out early after a brake rotor exploded. Ryan Blaney, on the other hand, ended up winning the championship but couldn’t win that particular race despite a hard-fought battle with eventual winner Ross Chastain as the laps wound down.
Odds via BetMGM
+600 – Kyle Larson
+700 – Ryan Blaney
+750 – William Byron
+800 – Ross Chastain
+900 – Denny Hamlin
+1000 – Christopher Bell
+1100 – Martin Truex
+1300 – Joey Logano
+1300 – Kyle Busch
+1400 – Tyler Reddick
For Blaney, it’s about breaking through at this track. He has the second-most poles of any driver at Phoenix. He’s also finished second in his last three starts at the track and fourth in the two starts before that. That consistently strong performance has never been enough for a win, however.
“I thought those three races that we’ve run second at that we could have won if a couple things go our way. That’s really all I can ask for is to just have the speed to try to win the race, so hopefully we can bring that and see what this car has on the short-track package,” Blaney said.
Blaney finished third last week at Las Vegas. Despite poor performance from the Fords for most of last year’s season, Noah Gragson finished sixth for Stewart-Haas Racing and the blue ovals looked much more competitive overall. It’s the first year of the new Mustang Dark Horse body, with a radical raised fender designed to increase sideforce.
The Toyotas are also redesigned for this season. That design has already proven to be a winning combination, even if it didn’t pay any points, when Denny Hamlin steered it to victory in the Clash at the Coliseum exhibition race to open the season.
As the series heads to the one-mile Phoenix Raceway, the first short track of the season, Hamlin’s teammate Christopher Bell is hoping to echo that performance. And he feels like his team is ready.
“I think we are in a really good spot,” Bell said. “We continue to get more and more gelled together, and I think we are poised for more great things in 2024 than we had in 2023. I’m looking forward to what we have in store.”
But it was a Chevrolet, in the form of Ross Chastain, who won at Phoenix last time the series visited, even if that was overshadowed by Blaney’s first championship. He’s hoping to keep Chevrolet’s streak alive.
His win at Phoenix may not have secured the championship he was dreaming of all season after getting eliminated from the Playoffs, but it was still a significant goal achieved.
“I don’t think it was a switch, it felt like it was a progression of what we had been working on and we were getting better at the end of the year,” he explained. “We had a few chances to win earlier than that and to finally put it all together there was big.”
There will be some new elements to watch for this weekend. After extensive testing last year, NASCAR has decided on a new short-track package designed to make the racing tighter by changing the downforce configuration for the Next-Gen cars. The changes include a bigger spoiler and a simplified rear diffuser, designed to move downforce from the front to rear and loosen up the cars.
Additionally, the cars will sport new specifications of Goodyear tires, which are designed for more fall-off throughout the run to increase the strategy component and get the cars looser.
Phoenix is the debut of this package, which was not in use at the Clash at the Coliseum, and so there will be a 50-minute practice session on Friday for drivers and teams to get a handle on the changes.
“I think that’s the big thing as well is trying to figure out this new package and how it runs in traffic, Ryan Blaney said of his first priority for the weekend. “Hopefully, we’re competitive.”
Phoenix has always been chaotic, with five-wide restarts and plenty of jostling for position, so getting a handle on the car early is important to not get back in the mess in the race.
Xfinity
Toyota driver John Hunter Nemechek is the lone non-Chevy winner in all three national series, winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He’s hoping to repeat the feat in Saturday’s Call811.com Every Dig. Every Time. 200 at Phoenix Raceway at 4:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
One driver who knows how to find speed at Phoenix is last year’s champion Cole Custer. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver won the race last time the series visited Phoenix, and it came with the champion’s trophy as an added bonus.
“You definitely put a little more emphasis on Phoenix when you go to the first race of the year there, mostly because you know how big this race will be when we return in November,” Custer said of his focus. It’s a race that means a lot later in the year, and you never know if you’ll be one of the ones racing for a championship or not.”
“I got the chance to last year and we made the most of it,” he added. “We didn’t have a great race in March but brought a rocket ship in November. You’re always going to bring the best you’ve got to a race, but there might be a little more pressure to get it right this time so you can be as perfect as possible later on. Hopefully we get a chance to race for the title there again in November.”
After wins at Daytona and Atlanta, though, Austin Hill still leads the standings ahead of Chandler Smith and Riley Herbst.
Herbst scored a top-five at Las Vegas, the place where he got his first Xfinity Series win, which was particularly special for him. It gives him key momentum heading into Phoenix too.
“I’m excited to get back to Phoenix. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the circuit, along with Richmond and Bristol,” Herbst said.
“The track itself is one of the more unique tracks because of how different each end of the track is. You have to approach both ends of the track differently. There are a lot of opportunities to show a lot of speed and get an advantage. We talk about the dogleg a lot there, so you see a lot of guys go down there to pass and find speed,” he explained.
“Phoenix is a fun race, though, for the drivers. I’m hoping to continue that trend, and we can keep the top-five streak we started in Las Vegas alive.”
NASCAR Cup Series
Next Race: Shriners Children’s 500
The Place: Phoenix Raceway
The Date: Sunday, March 10
The Time: 3:30 p.m. ET
The Purse: $7,806,252
TV: FOX, 2:30 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 312 miles (312 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 60),
Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 185), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 312)
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Next Race: Call811.com Every Dig. Every Time. 200
The Place: Phoenix Raceway
The Date: Saturday, March 9
The Time: 4:30 p.m. ET
The Purse: $1,448,204
TV: FS1, 3:30 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 200 miles (200 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 45),
Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 90), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 200)
- Denny does Dover after surviving hard-charging Kyle Larson to tame the Monster - April 28, 2024
- The Monster Mile brings short track style to high banking - April 25, 2024
- Sam Mayer scores Xfinity win by an inch in photo finish at Texas - April 13, 2024