AVONDALE – The end of Phoenix Raceway’s six-year run as host of NASCAR’s Championship Weekend will surely deliver the drama.
The final four drivers are screaming toward the finish line. All have survived a chaotic 2025 and will duke it out in the desert Sunday. Next year starts NASCAR’s new rotation schedule with Homestead-Miami Speedway up next, although Phoenix will remain in the mix.
“Any four that ever makes the championship floor is really strong,” driver Kyle Larson said. “But I would say this year there’s not really a favorite, I don’t think you could pick one.”
The NASCAR Cup Series championship is the highest level and most prestigious stock car racing series in the United States, averaging 2.5 million viewers per race. Drivers often live life in the limelight and have battled through a dramatic season to finally reach the final.
Last weekend’s race in Martinsville, Virginia, changed the outlook of the final four drivers as William Byron, outside the cut line for the top four in points, desperately needed a win. Byron dominated and led for over 300 of the 500 total laps, as well as sweeping both stages and outbattling Ryan Blaney to secure his position inside the top four.
Byron, the driver of the No. 24 car and member of Hendrick Motorsports, is in his eighth season of the NASCAR Cup Series and has made three consecutive appearances in the final four. However, the 27-year-old won’t let it change his mentality.
“I never want to say or do anything that feels out of character,” Byron said. “I just try to stay true to myself, do my job inside the race car, and let the actions of that do the talking.”
Byron added that “if I’m fortunate enough to win races that are meaningful to me, I show a lot of joy and excitement to that. I enjoy the moment … but right now I’m focused on the task at hand.”
The newest, and to some the most surprising contender, in the final four this weekend is Chase Briscoe. The Indiana native has burst onto the scene and is now competing in his first-ever Cup Series championship.
Briscoe, driver of the No. 19 car for Joe Gibbs Racing, earned his first Cup Series win in Phoenix back in 2022 and since switching to JGR this season, seems poised for another dominant showing in Arizona. Briscoe’s success has allowed him to improve his ability to run in the front of the pack this season.
“At Stewart-Haas Racing, I loved the people I was around, ” Briscoe said. “To be a year removed and now racing for a championship, it’s something that I didn’t think was a possibility. … I’m glad I’m where I’m at.”
“I feel like I’m just one of the guys up front consistently now,” Briscoe said. “If there’s a guy that’s normally not up there, you just race them differently because they are normally not up there. … That’s what you strive to do as a race car driver is be up front a lot, and now to be a normal front runner in the Cup Series is pretty wild to think about.”
The most successful driver, in terms of championships, is Larson, who is the only former champion out of the four contenders, winning the Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway in 2021.
The driver of the No. 5 for Hendrick Motorsports has his sights set high while in pursuit of his second championship. He cites chasing some of the great drivers of the sport as part of the fuel to keep him going.
“I don’t really think about the legacy part of it,” Larson said. “I’ve always really looked up to Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, the multi-time champions, and getting a second would mean I’m closer to them, so that’s one of the reasons that I would like to win just to hopefully get closer to them.”
The fourth and final contender is Denny Hamlin, one of NASCAR’s most prolific racers, logging 60 Cup Series wins since his first Cup Series race in 2005. In the No. 11 for Joe Gibbs Racing, Hamlin hopes to finally capture the championship that has eluded him in his four other appearances.
“This is a big test coming up on Sunday,” Hamlin said. “I feel like we’re a deserving team, all these teams are, but I feel like we’ve paid our dues in this thing.”
All four of these contenders have great track records at Phoenix Raceway, and all of them have won a race there. Hamlin, Larson and Byron also all have a career average finishing position of 10th in Phoenix.
This championship finale is one of the closest there’s been. Even the drivers feel that this race is going to be much closer than years past, and don’t feel that any one driver sticks out above the rest.
“Our track records at this track are a mixed bag,” Hamlin said. “When it’s narrowed down to two teams, I don’t know that the stats would tell you one team has an advantage over another, so this thing is wide open.”
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