The much-anticipated NASCAR Cup Series Season Finale 500 takes place Sunday (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Phoenix Raceway with a relatively new-look but highly-motivated Championship 4 group of drivers.
Only Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin was championship-eligible a year ago and this Sunday he will contend for his first title along with Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano – both former series champions – and Hendrick Motorsport’s Chase Elliott, who is trophy eligible for the first time in his five-year NASCAR Cup Series career.
With seven wins this season – including his third Daytona 500 victory – Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team certainly has to be considered a force to be reckoned with. He has two previous wins at Phoenix, the most recent, last year. More than half his starts at Phoenix (30) have resulted in top-10 finishes (17). And Hamlin arrives in Arizona having earned the most Playoff points on the season.
The 39-year old Virginia native – who will co-own a team with NBA legend Michael Jordan next year in addition to his driving duties at Joe Gibbs Racing – has a career-best finish of runner-up in the championship, finishing second to Jimmie Johnson in 2010. He’s advanced to NASCAR’s Championship 4 round three times in his career – 2014, 2019 and 2020.
Logano, a three-race winner this season celebrated one of those wins in Phoenix Raceway’s Victory Lane back in March before the pandemic forced a break in competition.
The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford is a two-time Phoenix winner and certainly has been strong in this year’s Playoff run – with an average finish of 8.1 through the nine Playoff races to date – best among the Playoff drivers. A second NASCAR Cup Series championship trophy would make him one of only 11 drivers to earn two titles in a three-year span. He’s been in NASCAR’s Championship 4, four out of the last six-years the elimination-style Playoff format has existed.
Logano, 30, of Connecticut, insists he is the favorite entering the race “and I have a lot of things to back that up,” he said smiling during the pre-race media call this week.
“We’ve had three weeks to think about it, be ready for it,” Logano added “With those things I feel more confident than ever. I always go back to think about my first Championship 4 round back in 2014. I remember crapping my pants about how nervous I was. If I’m being honest, I was very nervous. I had everything on the line for the first time. I didn’t know if I’d ever get back into the Championship 4 again. You didn’t want to blow the opportunity, right? You just wanted to make sure you made the most of it. Now going through it before, knowing how to prepare for what’s coming ahead of you, that battle ahead of you, knowing you succeeded before in the Championship 4 round, it really gives you some confidence to go out there and do your job.”
Keselowski, Logano’s teammate and driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, is making his first Championship 4 appearance since 2017. The 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion will be looking for his first career Cup Series win at Phoenix, however, he has two Xfinity Series victories there (in 2014 and 2018).
This season has been one of comparatively quiet success. He’s earned four race wins, 23 top-10 finishes and 12 top-five showings and led nearly a thousand laps (936). His title-eligible position at Phoenix to close out the season is particularly impressive considering the tough way he opened the season, crashing out of the Daytona 500.
In 22 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Phoenix, he has six top-five and 10 top-10 finishes. His best work is runner-up in the 2018 Playoff race. He led 82 laps – a personal best at Phoenix – in his 11th-place finish earlier this season.
The newcomer to this championship scenario is 24-year old Chase Elliott, but the second-generation star brings a lot of momentum fresh off a clutch must-win victory at Martinsville Speedway last weekend. His 10 stage wins in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet this season is second only to Hamlin’s 11 among the Cup competitors and his four victories is a personal best. His 1,083 laps led in 2020 is most among the Championship 4.
Elliott is looking for his first win at Phoenix, however. He has five top-10 and a pair of top-five showings in nine starts, including a career-best of runner-up in 2017. He’s led 249 laps at the desert one-miler and his driver rating (105.3) is second best among active drivers – best among the Championship 4.
A championship for Elliott would make him and his father Bill Elliott (1988 champion) the third father-son championship pair to win series titles joining Lee and Richard Petty and Ned and Dale Jarrett.
“For me, I’m just taking it a day at a time and just enjoying the moment,” Elliott said. “I’ve been saying that a lot lately, and I think it’s really important to do that. I’ve heard my dad say that over the years that he wished he enjoyed certain moments more and didn’t just run through them. So I’m just trying to enjoy it.
“This is a big opportunity – it’s not an easy thing to make the final four, it’s not something you should ever take for granted, may not ever be here again, so I recognize that and I recognize that we have a very solid team.
“As the No. 9 team in general, I think we are very capable of going and contending this weekend and I believe that and I think we just have to make the most of a great opportunity and enjoy it and try to thrive in the moment and hope for the best.”
Rest assured, Elliott and the rest of the Championship 4 will have their work cut out for them this weekend. Regular-season champion Kevin Harvick, who was stunningly eliminated from the title round last week with an uncharacteristic 17th-place finish at Martinsville, will be highly-motivated as he tries to become the first driver to win 10 races in a season since retiring seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson won 10 in 2007.
Martin Truex Jr., the 2017 series champion who will be missing his first Championship 4 round since 2016, is another who will be racing with a lot of pride on the line.
And of course reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch – who joins Harvick and Truex as the third member of the 2019 title-eligible quartet that failed to advance to the final round this season – will be a huge factor.
Busch has won two of the last four races at Phoenix and Harvick is the all-time winningest driver there with nine victories.
And of course, there is seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson’s final start in the series as a fulltime competitor. He won four times in a five-race span at Phoenix between 2007-2009, including three straight (2007-08). The 83-race winner steps away from the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet after 19 fulltime seasons and would love to finish on the ultimate winning high note.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
