In NASCAR, everything comes down to one championship race. Phoenix Raceway is the venue for this showdown between the four remaining Playoff drivers.
Each driver has run incredibly well just to qualify. Kyle Larson punched his ticket with a dominant run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell shined when it mattered to win at Homestead-Miami, Ryan Blaney scored a clutch win at Martinsville, and William Byron showed the consistent speed that’s earned him the series-most wins to make the Championship 4 on points.
Odds via BetMGM
+175 – Kyle Larson
+275 – Ryan Blaney
+325 – William Byron
+450 – Christopher Bell
+1200 – Kevin Harvick
+2000 – Joey Logano
+2000 – Denny Hamlin
+2000 – Tyler Reddick
+3000 – Martin Truex Jr.
+4000 – Chase Briscoe
It all comes down to the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race on Sunday (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
It’s an inexperienced group when it comes to racing for a championship. Only Kyle Larson is over 30 years old, for instance. That makes it the youngest-ever Championship 4. And that’s reflected in their experience. It’s something of a changing of the guard as NASCAR’s old stars are replaced by new talents.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Christopher Bell. “We got Next Gen cars and apparently we got Next Gen drivers, too, so… It’s a new group.”
Christopher Bell has, in some ways, the most experience competing for a championship. He has made the Championship 4 before, having qualified for it last year, but his prolific career in the lower-tier Xfinity Series and Truck Series gives him the most experience of the final race of any of the drivers racing.
“I think it helps,” Bell said. “I don’t think it’s a big advantage, but I do think it helps. I think it helps manage emotions and nerves going into Sunday.”
I have been really fortunate. I think six of my eight years I made the Final 4 in my NASCAR full-time career. So that’s really cool. But everyone’s going to be competitive. Maybe I have a slight advantage of managing nerves, but maybe I don’t,” he added.
Compared to his attempt last year, Bell certainly feels much more relaxed and is managing his nerves better.
“I feel more prepared just because of the time that we’ve had to get ready for this moment compared to last year being so far beneath the cut line, being in a must-win going into Martinsville,” he explained. “We didn’t even talk about Phoenix until we left Martinsville. Now we’ve had two solid weeks to game plan what we’re going to do in practice, how we’re going to execute qualifying.”
There’s another factor this year that makes Bell much more confident: “Certainly I’m more experienced. That’s a big part of the equation. But the big difference is our cars. I think our cars are tremendously better sitting here November 2023 than they were in November 2022.”
It’s Kyle Larson, though, who is the most experienced of the group. In fact, he’s got a championship trophy of his own at home. For Larson, the goal now is about backing up that title. He’s widely touted as one of the greatest racing drivers competing today: getting a second championship would only increase that praise.
“I didn’t really expect to win one. Winning one was amazing, a dream come true,” Larson admitted of his first championship. “I didn’t ever dream of winning, like, multiple championships. But, yes, I think now that I have this opportunity in front of me, yeah, for sure I want to win another one and get further up the history list, I guess, of accomplishments.”
“So, yeah, we’ll just give it our best effort this weekend. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,” he said.
Larson’s dominating performance in plenty of races this season, including the first round at Phoenix in the spring, coupled with the experience has also seen him called the favorite, which is reflected in the betting odds. Larson isn’t so ready to accept that, though.
“I don’t think it matters, no, no. I definitely don’t think it matters. I mean, sure, yeah, we’ve done a great job the last few seasons, but when it comes down to one race, it’s hard to close that out sometimes,” Larson responded. “I’m confident in our race team that we can. I’m not overly confident, though, because I understand how tough all these teams are.”
There’s one driver that the 2021 champion has his eye on, though, as a real potential favorite.
“I think you can make a case for all of us on why each of us could or should be the champion. I mean, obviously you look at, like, recent speed and stuff, Blaney probably to me stands out to be the best. If I was setting odds, I would put him as the favorite potentially,” Larson said.
“Again, not by much. I think we’re all four pretty equal. It should be a really good race. I think whoever wins on Sunday is a very deserving champion.”
It’s Ryan Blaney’s first time ever in the Championship 4. That hasn’t worried him approaching the race as he looks at it like just another competition.
“I haven’t had any nerves yet,” Blaney said. “I’m sure Sunday morning it will kind of hit, right? You wake up, All right, this is the day, we’re finally here. Probably be a little bit more excitement than nerves.
“I think at some point they will hit you,” he admitted. It’s how you kind of just shove them to the side, now you’re going. I do get nervous before some races every now and then, kind of big events, stuff like that. I think once I get in the car, like, everything just kind of goes away. You’re, like, in your little safe space, you can go do what you love to do.”
“I’m sure they’ll hit at some point. They’ll go away once we get going and you start thinking about the task.”
Blaney had a particularly strong run at Phoenix in the championship race last season, driving up to the bumper of teammate Joey Logano. It was Logano who won that race, with Blaney being “lenient” and staying behind, as he says the field treats championship drivers, but the No. 12 had the speed to win.
“You hope you learn from what made us so good last year in this race. I thought Joey and our car were the best two by far in this race last year. Good enough for him to win the championship, us to run second. You hope to learn from that,” Blaney acknowledged.
“I’m not a huge believer of solely relying on things you learned in the past at these tracks because things change all the time. You have to be willing to switch up things here and then for going back to these tracks. You can’t just rely on your old stuff and expect it to run good. You have to continue to evolve,” he added. Hopefully we do that. Hopefully we bring the same speed we had here last year. That would be very nice.”
Equally inexperienced with championship competition is William Byron.
He’s not making it anything special either: Byron flew out to Phoenix in the middle seat on a commercial flight to fulfill his media obligations leading up to the race, since he said didn’t want to jinx his chances of making the Championship 4 and booked the ticket last-minute.
“It was a long flight,” he admitted. “I should have asked somebody, but I just kind of wanted to come out low key.”
That start to the week describes Byron’s approach. He’s been incredibly good this season, racking up the wins, and he’s ready to treat this as just another race to win.
“It’s not about counting points,” Byron said. “It’s all about trying to beat these guys straight up. And I like that. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to battle straight up. You’ve just got to know that final round really counts.”
He fully expects the result to come down to the wire.
“We’ve just got be there at the end of the race. That final run is the key,” he added. “This race is all about the final round.
However, he knows that the competition is turned up to another level for this race. It’s the four best drivers in the series this year, according to Byron, battling for their season.
“The final four that we’ve got here are really the top four in all the stats. So it’s very interesting how that works out, and we’ve pretty much got the best four teams behind us,” Byron explained.
It’s not just the Championship 4 at Phoenix, though. The rest of the field will be racing, though with the ‘leniency’ that Blaney talked about. One of the drivers competing will be, as always, Kevin Harvick. But it will be the last time he does so in the Cup Series.
Harvick is retiring from the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing car and NASCAR competition after two decades of racing. Phoenix will be his final race. Though he’s of course hoping to go out with a good result like any competitor – and Harvick is nothing if not a competitor – it’s all about the memories this weekend.
For Harvick, what matters is going out on the top of his game. Though his team has struggled as a whole this season, failing to secure him a win, it’s not too long ago that Harvick won nine races in a dominant 2020 season or got that championship in 2014. His talent is certainly not in dispute.
“Somebody asked me when did I ever feel like I’ve made it. This is really the only time that I’ve ever felt like I’ve made it because I got to choose how I ended it,” Harvick said.
“I know that that’s rare, and as you look at it, I got to plan my last year and say this was it, and then we were still competitive, and then we went out and did what we were supposed to do. It’s really the first time I felt comfortable saying that I’ve made it.”
He won’t be hard to miss on the racetrack on Sunday, either. Instead of his typical Busch beer livery, his car will be emblazoned with large ‘Harvick’ letters. It’s a fitting tribute to a champion before another driver joins the record books alongside him.
Xfinity Series drivers have shown what desperation will do
An Xfinity Series season is determined by the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday evening (7 p.m. ET on USA, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
If the races to set the field was any indication, it will be no-holds-barred at the one-mile track. In the final race of the Round of 8 at Martinsville Speedway, Richard Childress Racing teammates Sheldon Creed and Austin Hill banged and crashed, losing out on the chance to race in the Championship 4 at all when Justin Allgaier seized the chance and won to lock himself in.
Each of the four championship contenders has overcome adversity to get to this position, giving them that extra motivation, too.
Sam Mayer struggled to get his first win before breaking through this season, especially on road courses, and earned a hard-fought first oval win at Homestead-Miami. Justin Allgaier came into Martinsville below the elimination cutline and got the clutch win to move on. Cole Custer, who lost his Cup Series ride this year and returned to the Xfinity Series team with Stewart-Haas Racing, earned his spot on points. John Hunter Nemechek also had a stint in the Cup Series before having to return to the Xfinity Series, although he’ll be back Cup racing next year for Legacy Motor Club.
With seven wins this season, John Hunter Nemechek certainly has the record to beat. Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer both have four wins apiece.
Ready for an upset, though, is Cole Custer. He only won twice – still a feat in itself – this season, both times at road courses. But his team showed speed throughout the Playoffs, and he earned enough points to advance despite crossing the finish in reverse after the final wreck at Martinsville.
“Winning a championship is definitely a career-defining moment,” Custer said. “I think after finishing second twice and being so close, it’s everything that we want.”
“It was our whole goal coming into this year because we believed that we could be the team to beat. [Stewart-Haas Racing] has been so close to that driver championship in the Xfinity Series before, and to be the first one to get it would mean a lot. That’s what our whole goal is. Going to try to win this is all a driver ever dreams of since we were kids. It’s pretty much championship or bust,” Custer concluded.
He knows the competition is fierce, though, and it won’t be an easy battle.
As Justin Allgaier pointed out, it can all come down to sheer luck, too. He entered the final restart at Martinsville Speedway in third, not good enough to advance. But he came out the winner with a Championship 4 berth to boot.
“I knew we weren’t in position to win the race,” Allgaier acknowledged. “We didn’t have the car to win the race. But my team stayed relevant. They stayed behind me, they kept pushing me, and we had a five-percent chance, and we came out with a win.”
“The Red Sea parted—listen, at the end of the day, everything had to be exactly as it was, and it worked out in our favor, and I can’t be more thankful for that… we’re kind of playing with house money.”
When I sat under that red flag and I knew we didn’t have a shot at it, it kind of changed my perception of the season, and it’s all for the better. I feel like I come here with a new invigoration to be successful and to win races, and it’s good,” he concluded.
Whoever wins in the Xfinity Series, though, will cement themselves as the driver to watch for all concerned in the NASCAR world. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
It’s a battle to the end for the Truck Series Championship
The drivers competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship Race on Friday night (10 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) have proven they deserve to compete for a championship.
Ben Rhodes has won once this year in a 22-race season, Grant Enfinger and Corey Heim have won three times, and Carson Hocevar has found victory lane four times. Those aren’t the highest numbers put up by Truck Series competitors this year, but these four drivers outran all the drivers with more wins throughout the course of the Playoffs.
Ben Rhodes has an impressive Playoff record in the Truck Series: this is his third year advancing to the Championship 4. Still, though, he doesn’t get to be called the favorite.
“I’ve always been considered the dark horse, I think, because we do have to fight for it so hard,” Rhodes explained. “For whatever reason, we haven’t really hit a perfect stride just yet – on anything. I don’t know what to attribute that to.”
The experience certainly gives him a mental edge over his competitors.
“When things get exciting, we have the experience to fall back on,” Rhodes said. “After doing this for the third year in a row, I just feel so calm and just at peace being here.”
“I remember the first year, I was so worked-up – I was so excited, so nervous and just wanting to do anything I could to just seize the opportunity. It took years for me to get to that point, and I didn’t want to let it pass. But I was still appreciative to be there. Now, at this point, I’m grateful to be here – I’m really grateful to be here. I just feel at peace. I just feel like this is where we’re supposed to be,” he added.
Corey Heim wants to shake Rhodes’ confidence, though. His first season in the Craftsman Truck Series was a breakout year for him, and he impressed with strong performances all season, only finishing outside the top ten twice.
“Throughout the year, I’ve been a big believer in that we’ve gotten better every week, every single race we’ve improved. We got off to a little bit of a slow start for our standards with the first three or four races, but I knew that we had the pieces in places, it was just a matter of putting it all together for me,” Heim said.
That’s been enough for Heim to be called the favorite. He’s certainly willing to embrace the title.
“I’ve heard it go both ways, so I don’t know, but I think we’ve earned that label,” Heim said. “I guess it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day until you win it. I feel like we have just been so rock solid and consistent since the springtime. We’ve done a good job of executing every week.”
Besides that, both Grant Enfinger and Carson Hocevar will also make sure they’re in the picture. Hocevar may have only just secured his first win this season in his third season of Truck Series competition, but he went on to win three more races and impressed so much that he’s secured a drive in the Cup Series next season driving for Spire Motorsports.
Hocevar has gotten his bad luck out of the way early in the week too.
“A few days ago, I hit a curb with my truck and got a flat,” Hocevar said in reference to his personal truck. He hopes that it bodes well for his No. 42 race truck when it really counts, though: “We got it out of the way, hopefully.”
It won’t be easy for anyone – no matter how willing they are to call themselves the favorite – to secure that coveted Truck Series championship trophy at Phoenix Raceway.
NASCAR Cup Series
Next Race: NASCAR Cup Series Championship
The Place: Phoenix Raceway
The Date: Sunday, November 5
The Time: 3 p.m. ET
The Purse: $11,143,232
TV: NBC, 2 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: NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship
The Place: Phoenix Raceway
The Date: Saturday, November 4
The Time: 7 p.m. ET
The Purse: $1,707,366
TV: USA, 6:30 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)
NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series
Next Race: NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship
The Place: Phoenix Raceway
The Date: Friday, November 3
The Time: 10 p.m. ET
The Purse: $794,766
TV: FS1, 9 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 150 miles (150 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on lap 45),
Stage 2 (Ends on lap 90), Final Stage (Ends on lap 150)
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