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2024 nascar championship weekend

Joey Logano outduels teammate Ryan Blaney for third NASCAR Cup Championship

getty images

November 11, 2024

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

 

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Joey Logano pulled off a masterful restart and held on for dear life.

 

Fifty-four laps later, Logano had his third NASCAR Cup Series championship—most among full-time active drivers—by a scant 0.330 seconds over Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney.

 

On the final restart on Lap 259 of 312 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway, Logano drove like a cannon shot from sixth place past Blaney, Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson and finally race leader and Championship 4 contender William Byron to seize the top spot on Lap 260.

 

Logano remained out front the rest of the way, though Blaney got as close as 0.167 seconds back over the last 10 laps.

 

The victory was Logano’s fourth at Phoenix, his fourth of the season and the 36th of his career. As a three-time champion, Logano ties Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and Tony Stewart, all NASCAR Hall of Famers.

 

Only four drivers have more titles: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jimmie Johnson with seven each and Jeff Gordon with four.

 

The championship was the third straight for team owner Roger Penske, with Logano winning in 2022 and Blaney claiming the crown last year.

 

“I love the Playoffs, I love it, man,” Logano said. “What a race! What a Team Penske battle there at the end. Had a good restart and was able to get in front of the 12 (Blaney). And he had a lot of long-run speed there, and it was all I had there to hold him off.

 

“Man, three (championships), that’s really special to get that. What a team. To fight through today, we went through a little bit of adversity throughout the race.

 

“I’ve got the best team. I don’t know if I’m the best driver, but I’ve got the best team, and together we’re very well-rounded and can show up when it matters the most. We’ve got a mentally tough team that can make things happen when it matters.”

 

Logano’s team, however, had issues on pit road. The No. 22 Ford lost four spots under caution for the Stage 1 break, and after green-flag stops during the second stage, Patrick Gray from Austin Cindric’s No. 2 team replaced Logano’s jackman, Graham Stoddard, who was ill.

 

After the final restart, Logano took charge, with considerable help from his spotter.

 

“Coleman Pressley,” said Logano, who led twice for 107 laps, second to Christopher Bell’s 143. “He was telling me where (Blaney) was. He was up there telling me the best lanes to run. And it’s a balance of putting dirty air on him and running the fastest laps for my Ford. We just got a little too tight there at the end and couldn’t really wrap the bottom as well as I wanted to.

 

“One-two for Team Penske, three championships in a row since this Next-Gen car (was introduced in 2022). Couldn’t be more proud of everyone at the shop that’s built these things.”

 

Byron finished third behind Logano and Blaney. Tyler Reddick was last among the Championship 4 drivers in sixth and never was a factor for the win.

 

After the final restart shook out, Blaney was fourth behind Logano, Byron and Larson. He passed Larson on Lap 277 and Byron on Lap 290. Over the next 22 suspense-filled laps, Blaney got close to Logano’s rear bumper but not close enough to make a move for the lead.

 

“I had to work really hard to get by the 5 (Larson) and the 24 (Byron). Joey was pretty far away, and I was working really hard to try to get to Joey. I was kind of nervous that if I ended up getting close to him, a lot of my stuff would be burned off of it, and it kind of was. But didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t really wait.

 

“Yeah, just took too long. The restart didn’t play out for us. I feel like if I came out behind Joey and didn’t have two cars in between us that I had to pass, I would have been able to have a better shot. But just the restart didn’t work out, and that’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

 

Logano followed a strange path to the championship. He was eliminated from the Playoffs at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course, only to get a second life when the Chevrolet of Alex Bowman failed post-race inspection by not meeting minimum weight.

 

Logano took full advantage, winning at Las Vegas the following week to earn his place in the Championship 4 Round.

 

Larson and Bell finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Bubba Wallace, Elliott, Chris Buescher and Daniel Suarez came home seventh through 10th.

 

The race was not without its share of comic relief. Coming to a restart after the Stage 1 break, the pace car slid into the sand barrels protecting the entrance to pit road, necessitating a 5 minute 47 second red flag period for cleanup.

 

After the race ended, Logano looked around in bewilderment.

 

“Where’s my crew?” Logano asked, then realized that his team was hustling from pit stall No. 24 on the backstretch, the stall assigned by NASCAR after Logano’s car failed pre-race inspection twice.

 

The final race marked a season of endings. Pole winner Martin Truex Jr. finished 17th in his final race as a full-time driver.

 

Kyle Busch’s record streak of 19 straight years with at least one Cup victory ended in a 21st-place finish. Logano now holds the longest active streak at 13 years.

 

Stewart-Haas Racing is ceasing to operate after the end of the race, with 12th-place Noah Gragson finishing highest among the four SHR drivers.

 

Jeff Striegle called his last race in the booth for the Motor Racing Network (MRN). Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing, announced his retirement after 45 years with NASCAR’s exclusive tire maker.

 

Harrison Burton finished 16th in his final drive for the Wood Brothers. And Fed-Ex sponsored Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for the final time.

 

NASCAR Cup Series Race – NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race

Phoenix Raceway

Avondale, Arizona

Sunday, November 10, 2024

 

  1. (2)  Joey Logano (P), Ford, 312.
  2. (17)  Ryan Blaney (P), Ford, 312.
  3. (8)  William Byron (P), Chevrolet, 312.
  4. (4)  Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 312.
  5. (7)  Christopher Bell, Toyota, 312.
  6. (10)  Tyler Reddick (P), Toyota, 312.
  7. (29)  Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 312.
  8. (5)  Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 312.
  9. (24)  Chris Buescher, Ford, 312.
  10. (34)  Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 312.
  11. (14)  Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 312.
  12. (21)  Noah Gragson, Ford, 312.
  13. (11)  Austin Cindric, Ford, 312.
  14. (16)  Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 312.
  15. (27)  Brad Keselowski, Ford, 312.
  16. (9)  Harrison Burton, Ford, 312.
  17. (1)  Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 312.
  18. (15)  Carson Hocevar #, Chevrolet, 312.
  19. (3)  Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 312.
  20. (32)  Todd Gilliland, Ford, 311.
  21. (25)  Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 311.
  22. (19)  Erik Jones, Toyota, 311.
  23. (22)  Daniel Hemric, Chevrolet, 311.
  24. (39)  Josh Berry #, Ford, 311.
  25. (26)  Derek Kraus, Chevrolet, 311.
  26. (23)  Jimmie Johnson, Toyota, 310.
  27. (36)  Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 310.
  28. (13)  Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 310.
  29. (12)  Chase Briscoe, Ford, 310.
  30. (18)  John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 310.
  31. (35)  Michael McDowell, Ford, 309.
  32. (20)  Corey LaJoie, Ford, 309.
  33. (30)  Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 309.
  34. (31)  Kaz Grala #, Ford, 308.
  35. (37)  JJ Yeley(i), Chevrolet, 306.
  36. (38)  Chad Finchum(i), Ford, 302.
  37. (33)  Ryan Preece, Ford, 302.
  38. (40)  Jeb Burton(i), Chevrolet, 294.
  39. (28)  Zane Smith #, Chevrolet, Accident, 247.
  40. (6)  Ty Gibbs, Toyota, Accident, 1.

 

Average Speed of Race Winner:  106.203 mph.

Time of Race:  2 Hrs, 56 Mins, 16 Secs. Margin of Victory:  0.330 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  4 for 33 laps.

Lead Changes:  16 among 9 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   M. Truex Jr. 1-9;J. Logano (P) 10-63;W. Byron (P) 64;C. Elliott 65-71;C. Bell 72-117;K. Larson 118-124;A. Bowman 125;T. Gilliland 126;C. Bell 127-177;R. Blaney (P) 178-188;W. Byron (P) 189;C. Bell 190-235;R. Blaney (P) 236;W. Byron (P) 237-247;K. Larson 248-253;W. Byron (P) 254-259;J. Logano (P) 260-312.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Christopher Bell 3 times for 143 laps; Joey Logano (P) 2 times for 107 laps; William Byron (P) 4 times for 19 laps; Kyle Larson 2 times for 13 laps; Ryan Blaney (P) 2 times for 12 laps; Martin Truex Jr. 1 time for 9 laps; Chase Elliott 1 time for 7 laps; Todd Gilliland 1 time for 1 lap; Alex Bowman 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 22,19,20,24,9,12,45,11,5,2

Stage #2 Top Ten: 12,20,22,24,11,17,5,9,19,45

 

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Joey Logano. Joey, the 10th driver to win three or more championships in his career, outstanding season, four wins this year, second in the NASCAR Cup Series, won the All-Star Race, and now ends the season with your third championship.

 

  1. I think you reflect on how hard this is to do, to do the back-to-back, the multiple championships, and Team Penske to do this, something that hadn’t been done since Hendrick in 2009 and 2010, can you just speak to how hard it is to run championships like this?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I don’t know how to put it into words how hard it is. But I think anyone listening that has probably done anything in professional sports understands it probably as good as anybody. You put the best of the best at their profession doing the same thing with one common goal, and the competition is always trying to get better, and everybody is wanting to win. It just gets harder and harder to do. The field gets closer and closer every year.

 

It’s tough. It’s hard to find an advantage over anybody anymore.

 

To see that Team Penske has done that, for one, shows that Roger is a fantastic leader. You’ve got to think of the management of Cindric, Mike Nelson, Travis Geisler for sure, those guys, they’re our leaders. Those are the guys that make the decisions on everything.

 

You’ve got to think that it starts at the top and starts to work its way through. They’ve done a good job at hiring people. They say it all the time, it’s hard to get in and it’s hard to leave. That’s what Team Penske is.

 

We’re expected to win, and the culture is that, exactly, that we’re going to win and we’re going to do it in a professional way. It doesn’t have to be said anymore.

That’s our brand. That’s what we are. So to be sitting here again celebrating together — I told you a little bit earlier when we were talking just what it means. It’s so cool to see everyone celebrating together. It gets more special every time because it’s the people that you work with for a long period of time. You grind it out every day together.

 

And after working there for, whatever it’s been, 13 years or so now, you get a lot of relationships built up over that amount of time. So winning together means more than ever to me, which makes this championship one of the most special ones.

 

You have that relationship with everyone a little bit more.

 

THE MODERATOR: Fifth driver to win three Cup championships under the age of 35, joining Jimmie Johnson, Richard Petty, Jeff Gordon and David Pearson.

 

  1. How do you go from winning one regular season race to winning three of the final 10 all at different tracks?

 

JOEY LOGANO: I’m going to sound like a broken record, but it’s people. I also just think that we thrive under pressure. I put myself in high-pressure moments, and part of the reason why I came up here yesterday and started talking crap a little bit is that it puts more pressure on me, and it seems like that helps. It’s not comfortable, but it seems like as a driver, personally, I’m better that way.

 

I think as a team we thrive under those situations. That’s why we have a lot of playoff wins in comparison to the regular season percentage-wise.

 

I think that’s a big piece of it. We got the attitude that we’re never out of it, and I think that’s what’s kept us going and shows in the playoffs so much is plenty of seasons, and this season in particular, midway through it, we could have called it a rebuilding year, but that would have been the loser thing to say.

 

We kept grinding and figuring it out and getting a little bit better and a little bit better and got the All-Star win, which was great, and then able to lock ourselves in the playoffs, and then winning the most important races. We said it so many times that winning Vegas, the first race in the Round of Eight, that’s what it’s about. That gives you the opportunity to focus in.

 

We didn’t run good in the last two weeks because we didn’t focus on them. We didn’t care. We showed up here and was able to be fast off the truck, qualify well, lead a lot of laps in the first stage. And we got ourselves back a little bit there further than I wanted to, but able to have a restart at the end that got us back to the lead and able to race Blaney to the end.

 

For Roger Penske and everyone at Team Penske, I don’t think you can draw it up any better. To see a one-two finish like that, not only in the race but in the season, that’s pretty remarkable.

 

  1. For a kid who grew up a Jeff Gordon fan to be now one championship away from tying Jeff Gordon, what does that mean, and what goes through your mind?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if I really think about it much, and I kind of said that earlier. Honestly, as you start to get older, you start to care more about the other people that are in it with you. To me that’s the coolest part. It’s just the first 20, 30 minutes of when you get out of the car that is what you do this for. The moment of seeing my wife and kids come up, that’s the best. That’s literally — that’s why we do it.

 

Those moments you cannot replicate without winning a championship. There’s nothing like it.

 

You talk about the grind, there’s not many people that see every bit of it. Mondays aren’t usually fun, and you come home and you’re mad and you’re upset and sometimes that — well, all that time that falls on my wife. So being able to celebrate together, that’s what makes it special.

 

The team being there, they go through the same thing. We talk about their significant others, they’re home and they’re raising kids on their own a lot of times because we’re gone. You guys know it. You guys travel every week. You guys have families. It’s hard.

 

This is the goal that we do it. My parents are back there. The time and the effort that they took to go around the racetrack with me as a kid, that’s a huge commitment. You think about the amount of times my old man would just go around the country not really knowing what the hell we were doing. I’m not a second generation, third generation racer. We were just figuring it out together. We were having fun.

 

To be here now and hearing what you just said, being one championship away from legends like Jeff Gordon, but being in the same category as a Darrell Waltrip and some of these others, it’s mindboggling. Just so crazy to think about it.

 

When you start talking about some of these legends, I’ve got to think about Bobby Allison that we lost, one of our legends. And the Allison family has meant a lot to my racing career, Donnie, in particular, the most. We race these Allison legacy cars, and we didn’t know what we were doing. And I had a great birth certificate that let me race for a little bit until Donnie figured it out. But we had a lot of fun with him. He’s taught me a lot on how to drive race cars.

 

Obviously in moments like this, not only in winning but in the tragedy that it is losing Bobby on this weekend is very emotional.

 

  1. What was that final 20-lap run like once Blaney got to second? Coleman told you you had about a tenth of a lap to give. Were you conserving any, and did that help negate any of that pressure? What did you feel mentally going through that final 20-lap run?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I think you look at the restart, and there’s 70 to go, I believe it was somewhere around there, took off, got the lead. It was like, okay, we’re in good shape. We were better than the 24. So we were pulling away. Blaney got stuck in fourth. Like, okay, I just had to manage, this could be a really long run.

 

So I kind of started managing my car once I got a couple seconds out, like all right, I’m in a good spot here, just got to manage it. Then Blaney got clear, and I was like, I’d better start going, considering how fast he was. To be able to pass cars these days, you’ve got to be faster, like a lot faster to pull the moves off.

 

I knew once he cleared the Hendrick cars and they weren’t going to make it easy for him, either, because he was going to be lights-outs fast, so I started going. I said, I’ve got to go.

 

He started catching me at a pretty rapid rate, and to your point, those last 20 laps, and really with 13, 14 to go, he was there, and it was one mistake away.

 

My car couldn’t quite turn as good as his. It’s a really big challenge to be able to, one, put dirty air on his line, but my fastest line wasn’t where he was. He was able to make the bottom work really well on both ends, but below the yellow line in 1 and 2 and even in the bottom of 3 and 4, but that wasn’t my fastest lane.

 

So I was like I’ve got to go fast, but I’ve got to put the dirty on him. Coleman did a great job at whipping the horse as much as he could to get me going but also to get me the information that I needed to be able to hold him off.

 

Yeah, it was very intense. It went from, all right, we’re looking good to holy shit, here he comes. Ryan is a tremendous race car driver. He is so fast. He pushes me a lot, more so than any other teammate I ever had. He pushes hard.

 

So to be able to race him to the end, it was fun. But honestly, I knew that that was going to be our toughest competition going into the weekend. I said that to our guys. I said, Blaney is going to have the speed. We’ve got to beat him on the details. That’s where we have the advantage over them. But the speed, no, he’s got turned up pretty high.

 

Everything worked out well, and like I said, the details at the end, the restart and getting out there and managing, that was really the difference.

 

  1. How much of that (indiscernible)?

 

JOEY LOGANO: 50/50. Once he started catching me, it was a lot more in the mirror. But yeah, you’re — I don’t know, I’m looking at both all the time. It’s kind of hard to say.

 

  1. You heard Ford talk about the championships, three championships, five drivers under 35. There’s only 10 total. You are becoming that legend that you were mentioning a while ago. How many more championships do you have? I know you’re not hanging up your racing shoes anytime soon. How many more championships do you have, and how many more do you want?

 

JOEY LOGANO: All of them. I don’t know. I don’t know. I tell you guys every year when the season starts, the goal is to win the championship. As many years as I’ve got left is as many as I want to get. I don’t really know what that is yet.

 

But I still enjoy winning, and it’s going to keep going.

 

  1. The Winston Cup purists are out in full force tonight as you might imagine. I’m curious, they say 17.4 average finish or whatever it is, he’s not a real champion. Is there anything you would say to that subset of the fan base?

 

JOEY LOGANO: No. No. I’ve got nothing to say to them. I’ve got a pretty sweet trophy right now. I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. (Laughter.)

 

  1. The only reason I thought you might have something to say is you came in here yesterday and you said that you wanted to come in today and step on everyone’s throat, and at the time I thought that was kind of bold because the thing in sports is always you don’t give the other team bulletin board material. Is there any part of you or Paul or RP that’s like, Joey, you shouldn’t do that, and do you feel any sort of trepidation in making a bold declaration like that?

 

JOEY LOGANO: I told you, I work better under pressure. I’ve got to put pressure on myself, and that’s one of the ways.

 

The race never — the race started weeks ago, right, and in here is part of the race. It never stops.

 

To your point about championships and what it is, the only reason why they don’t say this about other sports is because they didn’t change the playoff system. But the playoff system in other sports is not much different than what this is.

 

You can have a great regular season. It seeds you better for the playoffs. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to go all the way to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup Finals or the NBA Finals. It doesn’t matter. It might help you.

 

It’s the same way in NASCAR, the way we have the rules now, is that you set yourself up much better. You look at the way we came into the playoffs versus the 5, the 45, those guys that scored 15 playoff points for winning the regular season championship. That’s three wins’ worth of points in three races. That’s hard to make up that amount of points. They have the same opportunity to go out there and win and move on to the next round.

 

So for someone to say this isn’t real, it’s a bunch of bullshit in my opinion. That’s wrong. This is something that everyone knows the rules when the season starts. We figured out how to do it the best and figured out how to win. It’s what our team has been able to do for the last three years.

 

So I don’t like people talking that way because if the rules were the old way, we would play it out differently, wouldn’t we.

 

I just think that’s just a bunch of hearsay back there and people that just got to accept what the times are. Times change, right? And I don’t know if you have a lot of the moments that we have today without the playoff system that we have. Do you want to see the championship crown with three races to go? Because that’s what used to happen. That’s pretty boring. You’ve got do-or-die moments. You’ve got the pressure. You’ve got all these things going on the last 10 weeks. You have guys trying to get into the playoffs.

 

You have that storyline. How many storylines could we make? It’s amazing. For people to complain, it makes me mad. It makes me frustrated to hear that.

 

Gosh, it is awesome. I watch the Xfinity Series and Truck Series, and it’s hard for me to talk about the Cup Series because I’m in it, but I watch those as a fan, whether it’s from the booth or just on TV, like I did last night.

 

That’s entertaining stuff. I’m glued to my TV, especially a lot more during the playoffs than I am during the regular season. What’s wrong with that? Golly, man. I don’t know. Makes me mad, sorry. I’m not sorry. (Laughter.)

 

  1. Who is Joey Logano in the regular season versus what becomes of Joey Logano in the post-season?

 

JOEY LOGANO: I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess it’s just closer to the goal. I become more intense, probably a little shorter fused. I don’t know.

 

I try to achieve the same intensity level all year long, but it just seems like when it comes down to the end, you find another gear, and it’s really hard to get to it a lot of times.

 

But I think that’s throughout the whole team, too. It’s not just me.

 

  1. This team, we talked about it in Vegas when you won Vegas about how this team finished the regular season 15th in the standings but you were ready for the reset. You were so confident. To have the regular season you had and then to put together this post-season and it end with a third championship, is there a message in there about what type of team this is or how everyone should view this team and what you’re capable of if they weren’t already, quote/unquote, taking you seriously?

 

JOEY LOGANO: You look at all three championships that we have now, the recipe is pretty similar. I don’t think any of them that we came into as the favorite. The first one was the big 3 and me. They won all the races, and I was the underdog, and we won the first race in the Round of Eight and we felt like we were the favorites, and we were.

 

Then it happened in ’22, happened in ’24. It’s the same thing.

 

You found something that works. It’s so easy to say it here, Why don’t you just do that every year? It’s hard to do that. It’s not easy to win the races and things to work out the way they did.

 

But gosh, it’s hard for me not to look back at just the roller coaster of the Roval to the Vegas, from that quick change of events, to be sitting here three weeks later, just crazy. It’s just hard to call it, the sports are.

 

I’m just super blessed to be up here tonight, to have the team that I’ve got, to get through and fight and have the endurance for the whole year to be able to do that together.

 

Yeah, I couldn’t ask to be with a better race team than the people I’ve got. Paul Wolfe, a tremendous leader, working with our engineers and Shaggy and Joe and Gronk, our car chief, and everybody that works on these things. We all do it together. That’s what makes it so special.

I know you hear that and it sounds so — like a broken record compared to other champions that sat up here and said everyone does it together. But to see the way Paul does it, how we all sit in a room and spend a lot of time together, very honestly, with each other, it hurts sometimes. They’ll point it all out.

 

But we were able to become a better team because of it. Doing it together and not just having Paul make the calls all by himself, we’re all in it together. That’s what makes these moments even more special, and that’s what makes Paul a great leader. I always call him Playoff Paul, and then there’s Championship 4 Paul, and they just keep leveling up. And 6:00 this morning we were all sitting in the Penske bus going over everything again. That man works. He wants it bad. So it’s fun to do it together.

 

  1. On Thursday you mentioned that you usually learn something about yourself post — like at the end of the season, and say, Dang it. Looking back, now that you have the championship, is there anything you feel like you learned about yourself as a competitor that you didn’t realize earlier this year?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Too soon to tell. I’ll kind of go back and forth a little bit on it.

 

But as strong of a playoff run and winning the three races in the playoffs, that’s fantastic, but there’s obviously a lot of areas that we can be better as a team. Like we can’t just relax now and say this was great. We definitely have to find some areas where we were weak.

 

I can pinpoint three or four of them right now that we need to go to work on. We’ll enjoy this because championships are really hard to come by. So we need to celebrate and we need to have fun together and do all the parties and everything that comes along with it. It’s really special and it’s really fun to do all that.

 

But we can’t forget next year is coming, and the same weaknesses will be there if we don’t address them. Give me a little bit of time.

 

  1. If a driver wins three championships in seven years, they’re going to be praised as one of the greats. It seems in your case you have to defend your record because of this format. Do you get sick of that?

 

JOEY LOGANO: It’s been my whole career, bud, like from the very beginning. It’s just what it is. I’ve got thick skin. Bring it on.

 

  1. What is with the even-year thing? Come on.

 

JOEY LOGANO: I don’t know. I’m starting to believe in this stuff. I’ve always been Mr. Anti-luck, anti-superstitions. I always do the opposite of what people say you should do. And when people say good luck, I say, I don’t need it; there’s no such thing.

 

I don’t know. I don’t believe it’s luck. I still don’t believe it’s luck, but it is kind of weird that it’s gone this way. I promise you I will try hard next year, too. I don’t understand it, though. Hopefully we break the streak next year. That would be cool. I’d much rather break it by making the Championship 4 on an odd year than missing it on an even year. So let’s do it again next year.

 

  1. This is the third consecutive Cup championship for Team Penske, but you guys are undefeated in the Gen-7 era. I was wondering how important that is for not only your team but also for Roger Penske?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Obviously it’s huge. Like I said up here earlier, finishing three championships in a row is great, but finishing one-two, having two cars in the Championship 4, that’s hard. That’s hard to do to prepare a couple of cars, having two championship-capable teams.

 

Just as easily as we won, the 12 could have won tonight. Really both our cars were fairly equal depending on what part of the run we’re talking about. Both the teams are solid all the way through, top to bottom. It’s really like, geez, how do you do that? It’s very impressive that we’ve been able to do that.

 

You bring up the Next-Gen car; the car has never been more alike so the details never mattered more than they do right now. That’s a big piece to be proud of is that it’s not like we’re getting beat by money or being beat by having different parts and pieces and not being able to create a spindle quick enough. We’ve all got the same ones. It’s not a design thing. It’s all the same.

 

The details and the people matter the most now.

 

  1. Your win tonight marked your fourth at Phoenix. That ties you second all time on the wins list here. What has this place meant to you throughout your career, and how special has it been to win two titles here at Phoenix?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I think all of them have been special. I think my first win here was when we locked into the Championship 4 the first time. Then we won here, it was the last race before COVID, and we had a few weeks to, I would say, enjoy it, but it wasn’t enjoyable at all.

 

Then a couple championship wins. They’ve all been pretty interesting and special in their own way.

 

First time I’ve thought about that, but neat to click off four wins at Vegas now and here. Pretty neat to be stacking those numbers up.

 

  1. Roger, when he was in here, we talked about they opened the season with the 24 Hours of Daytona win, the two sports car championships, Shell-Pennzoil won a championship today, they won the Indy 500. He just was an INDYCAR championship shy of a full season sweep, which he considers one of the best years in team history. What does that mean to you to be a part of that?

 

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, you want to perform for Roger. He’s the guy that he took the chance on me. When you think about it, 13 years ago, I didn’t have options. Like this was the option.

 

To think that he took that chance, that Shell took that chance, Ford took that chance on a driver that won Xfinity races but that was really it. To grow into what we are now is something I take a lot of pride in. But to see the others of Team Penske and you think about what Team Penske is today, racing in all the different forms of motorsports and winning in all of them, like where else do you want to go? This is where you go to win. You surround yourself with a winner, that’s what happens.

 

My dad is back here, so this is one of his favorite quotes. It’s one of my favorites, too. You can’t soar like an eagle if you’re working with a bunch of turkeys. There’s a lot of eagles there. There’s a lot of really smart people, a lot of driven individuals, and that goes through so many different forms throughout Penske.

 

We’re talking about motorsports, but gosh, I was talking to Roger yesterday, and he was talking about his Porsche dealerships and the Ford dealership up in Dearborn now. This guy is everywhere. He was telling me all the places he was. I’m like, geez, dude. It made what we’re doing look small when he was telling me everything that was going on. I was like, this doesn’t seem like a big deal at all, does it. Obviously it is. I’m joking.

 

I’ve never met anybody that has more stuff going on than Roger Penske. He’s got some great people around him that go with him everywhere and do it together. It’s really neat to see how that works, and obviously I take a lot to apply to my life, as well.

 

  1. In one of your earlier interviews tonight, you mentioned losing the seat at Gibbs and just your career from that point on. I was curious how big of a chip on your shoulder did that give you, and at this point is that now an advantage?

 

JOEY LOGANO: I’m sure it’s probably a bit of a motivator. I don’t think it’s the No. 1 motivator, but you like to prove people wrong, don’t you? You know what I mean? You’d like to shut up the critics.

 

I don’t have anything bad to say about JGR. I think they’re a great race team, and I understand the decision they made. We weren’t winning. Something has to change. There’s nothing against them in any way. They’re a great race team. It just didn’t work, unfortunately.

 

But do you take that with you when you leave a little bit? Yeah, you probably do. You’re a little bitter about it. Anyone in here ever been fired? No? Just me? (Laughter.) You were a little bitter about it, weren’t you? Then when you’re successful somewhere else, it’s like, yeah, of course. I don’t know, that’s human. It’s just human. No different than you guys when it comes to that stuff.

 

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Justin Allgaier overcomes early mistakes to win first NASCAR Xfinity Series championship

 

getty images

November 9, 2024

 

By Holly Cain

NASCAR Wire Service

 

AVONDALE, Ariz. – In one of the most remarkable comebacks in recent memory, longtime fan favorite Justin Allgaier at last claimed the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship trophy Saturday night at Phoenix Raceway – coming from a lap-down mid-race in a back-up car to hoist the shiny hardware.

 

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Riley Herbst’s No. 98 Ford passed Allgaier’s No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet for the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race win on the last lap of double-overtime for his second win of the season and joined the new series champ Allgaier in twin celebratory burnouts on the front stretch of the mile-track.

 

“I said all weekend, I don’t know what the plan is, but HE has a reason for everything and tonight is true of that, this is mind-blowing, it really is,” said Allgaier, his voice already hoarse and strained from screaming in happiness, but the smile unshakable as his young daughters came in for a hug for dad.

 

“This team never gave up. [Crew chief] Jim Pohlman and his leadership skills are second to none. He told me all weekend that we were going to have a chance and we tried to give it away every way we could.”

 

It was an emotional outcome for the 38-year old Allgaier, who joked that he was just trying to make the race exciting for the fans. He has qualified for the Championship 4 seven times, finishing runner-up twice including last year.

 

And now he could finally celebrate. Allgaier’s team owners, NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sister Kelly Earnhardt Miller joined Allgaier’s longtime sponsor Rick Brandt on pit road. They were overjoyed to congratulate their driver who overcame a weekend of obstacles to finally claim this historic moment – and it came on a night when the sport observed a moment of silence to honor another great champion, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison, who passed away earlier Saturday.

 

The obstacles Allgaier faced happened well before the race’s green flag. His primary car was destroyed in a crash four laps into Friday’s opening practice session after running over oil on track from another car that ultimately forced four drivers into back-ups for the race. The car swap meant Allgaier started last in the 38th car field Saturday night, but the always upbeat 14-year veteran of the series, had moved into the top 10 by lap 26.

 

Then, after all that work, Allgaier was called for a re-start violation on Lap 101 and sent down pit road for a penalty … only to be called for speeding on the way out and penalized withanother trip down pit road – both penalties served during green flag racing. After the penalties, Allgaier dropped to 35th on-track and was a lap down on Lap 107 of the scheduled 200-lapper.

 

He got a huge break in fortune with a caution period with 45 laps remaining – opting to stay out and get back on the lead lap. He stayed in the top-10 and worked his way forward – moving from sixth place to second on the first overtime restart. He started on the front row of the second overtime restart, but was passed on the final lap by Herbst for the race win. Allgaier’s second place finish still good enough to land the championship, however.

 

It marked the third career win for the 25-year old Las Vegas native Herbst, who crossed the line .247-second ahead of Allgaier and led a dominating 167 of the 213 laps.

 

“I knew we were going to have a fast race car, these guys have been working on this race car and I knew we were going to be really really fast,” said Herbst, whose SHR team is closing at the conclusion of the season. “It’s been a really tough week at the shop, really emotional time. I’m forever grateful to every man and woman at Stewart-Haas Racing they gave me a really fast car today and I can’t thank everyone enough.”

 

It was actually fellow championship contender – reigning champ Cole Custer – who mounted the most consistent challenge to Herbst. He ran up front for most of the race, just off the pace of his SHR teammate and ultimately finished eighth in the No. 00 SHR Ford – his effort answered last year’s title with a runner-up in this year’s championship standings.

 

The other two championship contenders, Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill finished ninth and 10th. And as disappointed as the three title contenders were in not claiming the season championship, each conceded the night had a positive ending with their longtime competitor Allgaier finally getting that trophy after 14 years of competition in the series.

 

“I’m really happy for Justin, that was a long time coming,” said Custer, who will compete in the NASCAR Cup Series fulltime next season. “He’s definitely a deserving champion and they ran a great race, especially there at the end.”

 

Hill, making his first Championship 4 appearance, agreed with the sentiment.

 

“Justin Allgaier has been doing this for a really long time and to see him finally get it done, I’m really happy for him and happy for his family,” he said. “He’s a great guy to be around, a great competitor.

 

“He’s going to be a great champion for the Xfinity Series. I’ve enjoyed racing that 7 team all season long. If I couldn’t have gotten the championship, I’m glad he was the one that got it done.”

 

–30–

 

NASCAR Xfinity Series Race – NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship

Phoenix Raceway

Avondale, Arizona

Saturday, November 9, 2024

 

  1. (3)  Riley Herbst, Ford, 213.
  2. (37)  Justin Allgaier (P), Chevrolet, 213.
  3. (38)  Aric Almirola (P), Toyota, 213.
  4. (21)  Connor Zilisch, Chevrolet, 213.
  5. (4)  Chandler Smith, Toyota, 213.
  6. (6)  Jesse Love #, Chevrolet, 213.
  7. (2)  Sheldon Creed, Toyota, 213.
  8. (7)  Cole Custer (P), Ford, 213.
  9. (9)  AJ Allmendinger (P), Chevrolet, 213.
  10. (5)  Austin Hill (P), Chevrolet, 213.
  11. (8)  Sam Mayer, Chevrolet, 213.
  12. (17)  Shane Van Gisbergen #, Chevrolet, 213.
  13. (1)  William Sawalich(i), Toyota, 213.
  14. (31)  Parker Kligerman, Chevrolet, 213.
  15. (15)  Sammy Smith, Chevrolet, 213.
  16. (16)  Jeb Burton, Chevrolet, 213.
  17. (13)  Daniel Dye(i), Chevrolet, 213.
  18. (33)  Brandon Jones, Chevrolet, 213.
  19. (24)  Dylan Lupton, Ford, 213.
  20. (22)  Jeremy Clements, Chevrolet, 213.
  21. (32)  Josh Bilicki, Chevrolet, 213.
  22. (25)  Blaine Perkins, Ford, 213.
  23. (23)  Ryan Sieg, Ford, 213.
  24. (28)  Brennan Poole, Chevrolet, 213.
  25. (20)  Ryan Ellis, Chevrolet, 213.
  26. (11)  Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 213.
  27. (34)  Joey Gase, Chevrolet, 213.
  28. (30)  Patrick Emerling, Chevrolet, 212.
  29. (29)  Kyle Sieg, Ford, 212.
  30. (36)  Garrett Smithley, Ford, 212.
  31. (26)  Leland Honeyman #, Chevrolet, 210.
  32. (27)  Dawson Cram(i), Chevrolet, 209.
  33. (19)  Josh Williams, Chevrolet, 208.
  34. (10)  Parker Retzlaff, Chevrolet, Accident, 204.
  35. (18)  Jeffrey Earnhardt(i), Toyota, Engine, 169.
  36. (12)  Anthony Alfredo, Chevrolet, Accident, 152.
  37. (35)  Greg Van Alst, Chevrolet, Suspension, 108.
  38. (14)  Stefan Parsons(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 61.

 

Average Speed of Race Winner:  88.545 mph.

Time of Race:  2 Hrs, 24 Mins, 20 Secs. Margin of Victory:  0.247 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  7 for 53 laps.

Lead Changes:  21 among 8 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   W. Sawalich(i) 0;S. Creed 1-6;R. Herbst 7;S. Creed 8-9;R. Herbst 10-49;J. Allgaier (P) 50;R. Herbst 51-54;C. Custer (P) 55-59;R. Herbst 60-78;J. Allgaier (P) 79;S. Creed 80-89;R. Herbst 90-145;C. Custer (P) 146-147;S. Creed 148-149;D. Dye(i) 150-151;P. Kligerman 152-153;R. Herbst 154-199;J. Allgaier (P) 200;A. Hill (P) 201-205;J. Love # 206-211;J. Allgaier (P) 212;R. Herbst 213.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Riley Herbst 7 times for 167 laps; Sheldon Creed 4 times for 20 laps; Cole Custer (P) 2 times for 7 laps; Jesse Love # 1 time for 6 laps; Austin Hill (P) 1 time for 5 laps; Justin Allgaier (P) 4 times for 4 laps; Daniel Dye(i) 1 time for 2 laps; Parker Kligerman 1 time for 2 laps.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 98,81,18,21,1,7,00,19,20,2

Stage #2 Top Ten: 98,18,20,2,00,88,16,1,19,7

An Interview with:

Justin Allgaier

 

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, Justin Allgaier. Congratulations, Justin.

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I don’t have a voice, just so y’all know. I apologize in advance. I did a lot of screaming out there and it’s gone, so I’ll do my best to get through this. Sorry.

 

Q. When I asked you about Wayne Auton in Vegas a couple weeks ago, you said that was your goal this weekend, was to get him on that championship stage. He ends up handing you that trophy. That moment as you’re celebrating this pinnacle of your career, how special was that?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Beyond special. I mean, Wayne has been a staple of this sport, not even just the Xfinity Series, when I came into the Truck Series way too long ago to even want to admit, Wayne was the guy, right.

 

Wayne is the type of person that he has leadership skills and he rules the garage well, but he also is the same guy that you want other people to emulate. You want your kids to know Wayne because he’s that guy. He’s just a special human being.

 

Not that we won’t have great leadership moving forward, but there’s a huge void that will have to be filled, and Wayne is somebody special. And I’m going to be honest with you, Wayne has given me a lot in this sport, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to send him off and to celebrate a championship with Wayne on the stage.

 

It hasn’t really sunk in yet, but when we get to that banquet, I told him, I want to get you on stage, I want to embarrass you. That’s my goal. His family was here tonight, and Wayne got emotional last night when we did our Championship 4 meeting because he cares about this sport and the people that are in this sport.

 

It was really cool to be able to send him off that way. We’ve both been here a long time. We got a lot of gray hairs together, and that was really special to me.

 

Q. (No microphone.)

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: It was, yeah. When he keyed up the microphone, hearing him and signing off as 42, those are moments that you’ll never get back. When he walks away — I don’t know if he’ll come back to the racetrack or if he won’t, whatever, but when he walks away from the sport, I’m very proud of the fact that I was the last champion that he got to crown.

 

Q. It’s about like lap 145 and you’re circling the track by yourself, one lap down, kind of begging for a caution. What’s going through your head there? Did you think there was any hope left?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: No, I was ready to pull down pit road, to be honest with you, and just park the car in the pit stall and get out. If it could go wrong this weekend, it went wrong, and the team never gave up.

 

I could tell the disappointment in their voices, they went radio silent for a while, and I could tell the disappointment in their voices. And that’s a hard spot to be in as a driver.

 

Six times before me I’ve come in here and I’ve said we did a great job and we executed the night well, and we built a great race car. And I’ve walked out of here as second, third, fourth and not had an opportunity to bring a championship back to the men and women at JR Motorsports.

 

This 7 team right now is just different. Jim Pohlman and his leadership is amazing, and these seven guys, I cannot begin to stress to you how out of the trenches they dig, and tonight is a great example of that. We walked out of here as champions because of them.

 

The strategy, the race calling, Jim and I laugh because last year everything kind of went the way we wanted it to, and we got here and we ran second. Third in the race, second in the points.

 

This year, everything we’ve tried to do together that’s been kind of bold and outlier strategy has gone against us.

 

And tonight that’s not the case. It’s a dumb mistake on my part, followed up by a second dumb mistake. And still to have the wherewithal to have the strategy right, to get us back in it and walk out of here as I champion — I really wanted to win the race.

 

Riley had a really fast race car, but we had already run into each other like four times tonight. So I knew if I blocked Turn 3, I was probably getting wrecked. And that wasn’t going to suffice for the team to walk out of here with a championship.

 

Again, I cannot say enough about the team that I have behind me. And the reason why tonight is going to be special for many years to come is because one of the Brandt employees actually texted me this morning, he said the only way to have a comeback story is to start from behind.

 

And we’ve done that all weekend, we’ve done that all year, and this team is really special.

 

Q. As a follow-up to that, over the last two days, we’ve seen the full range of emotions from you, from bashing the toolbox to the emotion of the winning the championship. In that moment, 45 to go, finally after a year of very bad luck, you get the caution you need. What were you feeling and thinking at that moment?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Christmas. It’s Christmas in November.

 

You know, I’ve never fought a toolbox before. I’ve fought a lot of things, I never fought a toolbox before. That was a first for me. I don’t know who won to be honest with you. I think the toolbox won. The emotions have gone just haywire.

 

My wife and my kids are that, like, steady foundation that — when I’m done with the sport, I just want my kids to look back and just realize that we never quit, even when the moments didn’t look like they were going our way.

 

And that’s what this weekend was all about. The weekend didn’t go the way we wanted it to. If you could script a championship finale, it would not go through the way that we did it this weekend. I can assure you of that.

 

Not only that, JR Motorsports as a whole fixed our car, got the backup car out, fixing the 9, wrapped the 9, the 18 was working their guts out trying to change an engine.

 

It just was, like, as a company in a 10-minute span, we had everything go the way you wouldn’t want it to go.

 

I think that these moments — Dale Jr. and his elation tonight was incredible. Kelley and L. W., Mike Bumgarner and the leadership of our shop.

 

And then to have all of the other teams come out there and be out on the stage with me at some point from our shop, we have a special place. I know that that sounds crazy, but our race team is not big by any stretch, and we pick each other up when we’re down and we push each other to the absolute limits.

 

I was sad that it was only one of us in the Final 4, to be honest with you. I thought at the beginning of the year we had a great shot at getting all four in the Final 4, and over time that kind of wanes and you end up with where we were.

 

But the effort this week, watching those guys help us put cars together and then last night, it’s about this race team as a company. The men and women that are at JR Motorsports are really special. And the Hendrick engine shop, they’ve gone to work all year. We’ve not been where we want, and they’ve gone to work all year. It’s just special.

 

This is going to go down for me as one of those weekends where I truly will step back in 10, 15, 20 years ago, I’ll look back at the race team that we had and really be proud of what we’ve accomplished.

 

Q. What does it mean to you that so many of your competitors have either reached out to you personally, they were coming in here and congratulating Dale Jr., they’ve been saying things at social media, your championship is very popular among people that you race against?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: You know, I think for me, A, I’ve been doing it a long time. I’ve got a lot of gray hairs because of this sport. But I’ve been so lucky to have great teammates, to have great competitors.

 

Yeah, you battle amongst each other time and time again, but at the end of the day I think all the other racers that I’m around really truly, they know what I believe about the sport and why I want to be here and why I race like I do. I’m not going to say that I’m not aggressive in some regards. I don’t feel like I’m dirty, but I also — I put my heart and soul on the racetrack each and every lap.

 

I think that when you get here to this sport, it’s not easy. Nobody has ever had an easy path to get here. Championships don’t come easy. Race wins don’t come easy. Just being on the racetrack as a whole doesn’t come easy. But I’ve had so many great people that I’ve been able to have conversation with and race with and be a part of their racing journeys, and they’ve been a part of mine.

 

I think that a lot of people know how hard I work and how much I want this, and that makes this more special. But to see the ones that you’ve battled with hard and even guys we were racing with for a championship tonight, it was a battle, and genuinely we all had a lot of respect for each other and we walk out of here, and I think that we would have all four been happy for each other had any of the other ones one, and I think that’s really special.

 

It doesn’t go unnoticed. Josh Williams brings me a Yoo-hoo every time we win, and tonight he brought a Yoo-hoo up on stage. Obviously, they didn’t have the night that they wanted, but he still, like clockwork, does that.

 

Those are the type of moments that for me are special. When I walk away from the sport, I don’t really care how many wins we had, the championship doesn’t really matter. I want people to remember me for me, and it means a lot.

 

Q. Your leading last lap going to the checkered flag, Riley is coming. What’s going through your mind at that moment?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Don’t crash. Don’t get wrecked.

 

Q. Were you concerned about him? Because he said he would have moved you.

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: He did, multiple times throughout the course of the night. He actually tried to flatten the left rear tire at one point. He wanted to win this race. I wanted to win the race, also, and I wanted to win a championship a lot more.

 

I think if he ever gets an opportunity to be where we were at tonight, I think he’ll look back at this win and probably wish he would have done some things different. But at the end of the day, you know what, everybody has got the way that they’re going to do it, and wins are obviously super important.

 

I’m not upset at him. There’s no hard feelings. I just think that the moment tonight was way different than just winning the race, and I believe that.

 

Q. You tongue-in-cheek maybe kind of joked a few weeks ago that there was a moment a few years ago where you said if you’d won the championship you were done —

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: 2022, absolutely.

 

Q. Are you going to walk off now?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: No. No, my wife says I can’t. So you can all thank my wife for that. 2022 I left here, and there’s a photo of Dale and I, and it was very emotional. It was a very weird emotional experience.

 

But Friday night before that race in 2022, we were sitting at dinner. We had like 20 people at dinner. And I said, If I win the championship tomorrow, I am dropping the mic and I’m walking away and I’ll wipe my hands of the sport.

 

She looked at me with a look that I had never seen my wife give me before, and I realized really quickly that it wasn’t about me per se. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Rick Brandt and the Brandt family for what they have done for my career and me being in the sport.

 

We have a lot of great partners but nobody has stood behind me like Rick and his whole group.

 

A couple of months ago I signed a new two-year contract. And to be honest with you, tonight it makes me ready to go to Daytona. I know that sounds crazy. I know we’ve got an off-season. I’m getting shoulder surgery in a couple days. I’ve got a lot going on.

 

But I truly am ready to go to Daytona. I’m ready to keep this journey going. I don’t know what it looks like. I may never make another Final 4 in my career. I’m okay with that. That’s not my — God’s plan is way bigger than anything I could ever come up with.

 

Selfishly, we all question what that plan is sometimes, right? And it doesn’t always work out the way you think it’s going to work out or whatever. But I am blessed to be a part of a sport that is really special.

 

As a young kid, at school you do book reports and you do all these things, and you get thesaureses and you learn all these good words. You do book reports and you do all these good things. From the time I can remember, it’s all been about the sport of NASCAR. I’ve always loved the history of the sport and what it embodies.

 

I think that makes tonight special, but it also makes me want to come back and do it again. We’ll see what happens with 2025. Whether we make the Final 4 or not, I don’t really care. I will next year, but in the moment I don’t really care right now. I’m just excited to be here and be a part of it and put this in the record books.

 

Q. What’s the shoulder surgery going to be for?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Over time you crash and do things and be stupid, and I’m a 38-year-old that thinks that I can throw a softball with my daughter really, really well. So I have like a bone spur, I guess, in my shoulder, and I tore my rotator cuff because of it. So getting all that fixed.

 

Layne Riggs at Milwaukee jumped up and down on the roof and his shoulder came out of socket, and I’m like, I’ve been there, I know what that feels like, and it’s not pretty. So getting that fixed.

 

It’s been three years since all of this started, and it was finally time. So it’s only fitting that we win a championship right before that.

 

But it’s been super annoying. If I’ve ever shaken your hand in the last couple of months or like pointed something or you’ve seen my move my arm — you probably don’t recognize it — it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.

 

I cleaned the desk off at the chiropractor’s office a couple weeks ago, and I’m like: I’ve got to get this fixed.

 

So we’re doing that. And recovery time should be short. But as with all things, you never know what to expect until you get in there. But should be healed up in a couple of weeks.

 

Q. In Las Vegas to begin the Round of Eight, you talked about — you laughed when you said maybe you’re going to take the hard road to the championship, and you talked about the peaks and valleys and experiencing that and understanding and being grateful. Do you think, even after time passes from tonight, that you will ever be able to comprehend the peaks and valleys in not only this season but tonight to win this championship?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: The short answer is no. Jim gave a speech at the Roval, I guess it was, that pressure makes diamonds. We had the little diamond figurine that we brought along and all these things. I think it goes without saying that the sport is tough, but I also don’t think you realize how impactful those little moments are.

 

It’s not been easy, but also it’s not been hard. I look at some of the struggles that other drivers’ teams have. I’d be remiss if I didn’t look at how great of a race team I have, how good of race cars we bring to the racetrack every week. Yeah, when it’s hard, those are difficult moments. But it’s really all about how you persevere through those moments.

 

I’ve been blessed to drive amazing race cars for the last number of years and have a threat at a championship and an opportunity to do this. Even on days like today or this weekend where it didn’t go well, we crashed in practice and then you’re starting in the back and then you have the tire go down and then you make the penalties, it’s like one thing after another.


Those are the moments when — when I sit down 10 years from now and I’m no longer driving, tonight is going to be one that you’re going to laugh at wholeheartedly, and it is going to be one that will make this night that much more special.

 

And I really truly believe that God works in mysterious ways, but tonight is one of those ways that I will never understand or comprehend how it worked out or why it worked out or how we got here. But we’re here, and I’m not going to be sad about it.

 

Q. The final two restarts, the way you drove being in the moment, did anything feel different? Did you feel more determined? Was it win or go home? What were you feeling or thinking in those two restarts?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I was thinking that I was really hoping we’d get to the white because we — I got around Cole, and then the caution come out. And I’m like, we couldn’t just finish this thing off, right? Then we pit, and then the restart happens. I think there was another one, right?

 

Well, the 21 — I don’t know why, I had this, like, moment of if the 21 drives off into the corner like I think he’s going to, there’s no way he’s going to come out the other side. He’s on two tires.

 

I’m like, I’m just going to hedge to the middle. I entered in high, and I’m like I’m going to hedge to the middle.

 

And Eddie’s voice went up five octaves, and he’s yelling at me to: Get down. Get down. Get down.

 

And we were able to get clear of him, and then the caution come out.


Then I actually just saw a replay, and I was — the first question, I saw replay. I didn’t realize that the 98 was outside the 22 going down the front straightaway. We all should have crashed. I knew we almost crashed, but we should have crashed. I didn’t know any of that in the moment.

 

The angle is so weird here for the spotters. There is no way they can call anything getting into 1 or getting off of 2.

 

I wondered why Jesse was so mad at me after the race was over, but obviously that makes good sense.

 

But it was like every time we’re almost there, we can’t get there, and then again, the last restart we were able to get out front, and then Riley is there. And I was pretty confident he would have did whatever it took to get by me last corner.

 

So I gave him the bottom and just hoped that we could drag race off the corner. But either way, to come out of here with a second-place finish, to come out of here with a championship, yeah, you want to have the walk-off home run and win the race, but still an amazing journey to get here, and I’m proud of what we accomplished tonight.

 

Q. You mentioned your family numerous times tonight. It’s been 14 full-time seasons, seven Championship 4 appearances. What was it like to share this moment with them on the frontstretch after your first championship after all these years?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I’m going to start with my mom and dad. As they get older, you don’t know how many more moments you have with them to celebrate stuff like this. My parents haven’t traveled nearly as much this year as they used to, so that’s been tough for me. As somebody that they were the reason why I’m in the sport, it’s been hard not having them travel.

 

My wife and my kids haven’t traveled as much. My oldest plays travel softball. You guys all know that because I talk about it all the time. But they haven’t traveled as much, either. She was actually supposed to play this weekend, and luckily if I made it to the Final 4 they didn’t travel, so here we are.

 

But family is what started this sport for me. It’s what’s carried this sport for me. It’s what I will always go back to. They are the most important piece.

 

Having all of them here tonight and to celebrate and to be a part of it is like — there are no words. My in-laws were here and I had I don’t know how many people here. Campbell probably would know. I feel like it was 100. People just kept showing up to get pictures and I was like, I forgot they were here. I forgot they were here, too. Then obviously the Brandts had tons of people outside. Just really, really special.

 

This is something for me that again, my wife is the reason why I’m still doing this and my kids are the reason that I want to show them the resiliency of just never quit. It’s been a long time. I’ve missed a lot of things in my kids’ life. My dad missed a lot of things in my life as he was traveling to the racetrack. That’s not — I regret that part of it, but at the same time I think they understand why I do what I do.

 

Willow is my youngest. I’ll be at more stuff for her because I’ll obviously be old and retired by the time she gets a little bit older, but these are the moments that having these pictures — we’re getting ready to go do photos on the back straightaway. Having those photos will be really, really important to me.

 

I’ll always have the memories, but the photos are important. I think back to 2022, going back to that, and I think back to Ty and the photos that he has on the back straight away with Coy, and I don’t know what those photos mean, but I know. It makes tonight that much more special. My family will always be a big part of it, and I never knew if we were going to win a championship or not, but it’s cool to be able to have these photos and have all the celebration and all the things, and Campbell has got a scar for the rest of his life because of tonight. He got some stitches earlier in Victory Lane.

 

We’ve had it all tonight, and it makes it that much more fun.

 

Q. I want to get your reaction on this. When Dale was in here he said, and I quote, “I didn’t give one s— about the owner’s title, I just wanted Justin up on that stage.” What does that mean to you?

 

JUSTIN ALLGAIER: You know, it’s funny, two years ago that photo we were talking about, Dale was like, I could just see this pain in his eyes and his face, and it wasn’t even about the race team not winning. He genuinely cared that I didn’t win the championship. Like it bothered him that we couldn’t get the job done.

 

He commented on it multiple times. Then last year, he’s like, it didn’t feel the same. Like it wasn’t — I was upset that we didn’t win, but we were there and we were in the moment, and we just didn’t get the job done.

 

Then tonight before the race, I was like, man, this one doesn’t feel like the last two, and I’m like, I don’t know that I’m going to get as emotional if we don’t win like I did two years ago, but it just feels different. He’s like, man, there’s nothing more than I would love to see our race team be able to get you a championship trophy and stand on that stage. Like you deserve this.

 

He’s like, I think two years ago we had a moment where you realized not only what you mean to myself but to this race team, and that was genuine, like I really feel that way.

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has accomplished everything in this sport that any driver could ever want, right? He’s a fan favorite, he’s a race winner, he’s a champion; he’s all the things that you would ever want in this sport. He doesn’t need Justin Allgaier. He doesn’t. Nor does Kelley, nor does L.W., nor does anybody at JR Motorsports. But when I walk in the doors, I feel like they genuinely want me to be there, and they want to see me succeed.

 

I was sad, last week Sammy had a great race and almost made the Final 4. Sam has done an amazing job this year. Brandon has done an amazing job. He’s had a lot of heartache on his — not of his doing, just stuff that’s happened.

 

Then you add Connor and Carson both have done an amazing job and it’s been a great season for our race team.

 

But we’ve done this so long together. I’ve seen drivers come and go. I’ve seen champions come and go. I’ve watched drivers win championships for Dale that I’m like? Man, what am I doing wrong? Why can I not get one of these for Dale.

 

I think I’m the first owner’s champion; is that right? Non-9 car, also. They told me that earlier. So that’s a cool stat. Kelley is technically my car owner; so Dale is going to be upset about that one.

 

You know, it’s just different. Dale has seen the struggle. He’s seen the pain. He’s seen the frustrating Mondays when we come back from the racetrack. Those are moments that you live it with somebody, whether — Dale has driven his fair share. He’s raced with us this year. He’s done it all. He knows the frustration. He knows the pain in what we’re going through.

 

I watched Ty win yesterday, and I feel like a short person is going to win tomorrow because the first two of us are really, really short. Reddick — Blaney — there’s a stat that if I win he wins or something but Reddick might get the advantage because he’s short like me, I don’t know.

 

But one of the things that was really cool was, like, when I look at yesterday and I look at Ty, he’s a short track racer. He’s got a lot of the same background that I have. I grew up racing dirt cars all over the Midwest. When you’re a kid and you’re racing, and I was 12 or 13 when I got behind the wheel of a dirt late model, you don’t think about this.

 

There’s a lot of great racers. You battle every Friday and Saturday night against amazing race car drivers and you never think about this. Dale has spent his whole life in this, whether it be with his dad or his brother or family or whatever. He’s spent his whole life in this, and he genuinely understands what it means to be here and to be a part of the sport.

 

Tonight is kind of a culmination of all of that, and I think having him be a part of it is really special, and I hope we made him proud. I hope we made the whole race team proud tonight, and we’re going to walk out of here with our heads held high, and I’m definitely proud of my race team. I’m proud of what we accomplished, and we’re going to enjoy this one.

 

I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you. I have a lot of conversations with you all throughout the course of the year. Some good, some not so good. Sometimes I’m in a different state of emotion.

 

But you all truly have been great part of my career. I appreciate it. Appreciate all the hard work, and I look forward to seeing every one of you in Daytona.

 

I know that things change and jobs change and all that fun stuff, but I genuinely do enjoy all of your smiling faces, and I look forward to seeing you all in Daytona. I’m sorry that it’s whatever time it is, 11:00 at night and we’re still in here, but I appreciate all the hard work you guys put in, and looking forward to seeing everybody in Daytona.

 

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

Saturday Championship Weekend Notebook

 

November 9, 2024

 

By Reid Spencer & Holly Cain

NASCAR Wire Service

 

Joey Logano dismisses inspection issues in run-up to NASCAR Cup title race

AVONDALE, Ariz.—Joey Logano said his NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race effort is going according to plan—overcoming a couple of glitches in Saturday’s pre-race inspection at Phoenix Raceway.

 

Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford failed technical inspection twice before qualifying, at a price. Car chief Tommy Ellis was ejected from the track, and the No. 22 team lost pit selection, with the stall he’ll use assigned at NASCAR’s discretion.

 

Nevertheless, Logano qualified second for Sunday’s Championship Race, behind only non-Playoff driver Martin Truex Jr.

 

Logano’s car made it through tech on the third try, limiting the potential damage. The two-time champion dismissed the inspection issues as something over which he has no control.

“There’s nothing I can do about it, right?” Logano said. “I have to focus on my job. That’s out of my hands, what goes on with that stuff.

 

“So obviously when it comes down to this, everyone is pushing and trying on get as much as they can. We thought we fixed it enough the first time, and we didn’t. Then you have to fix it even more, to really make sure you make it through.

 

“So just pushing the edge and just didn’t quite get by with what where we thought was OK, but obviously it was too far.”

 

Tyler Reddick shows improvement from less-than-stellar practice session

Understandably, Tyler Reddick has been the most subdued of the Championship 4 drivers this week.

 

For one thing, he’s the only one of the four making his first run as a title-eligible driver in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (3 p.m. ET Sunday on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

For another, Reddick was 21st fastest in Friday’s final Cup Series practice, trailing Championship 4 rivals Ryan Blaney (first), William Byron (fourth) and Joey Logano (ninth).

 

“Yeah, I think we went the wrong way,” Reddick acknowledged. “We were able to understand it and learn from it. You never want to go through a practice and have it go that way, but we understood why we got where we did and why the speed kind of went away.”

 

Reddick’s 23XI Racing team made adjustments after the practice session and apparently found a productive direction. Reddick made the final round of time trials on Saturday and earned the 10th starting position for the main event.

 

The only disappointment for Reddick was qualifying behind eighth-place starter William Byron. With second-fastest qualifier Joey Logano penalized for inspection issues, Byron gets first pick of pit stalls, with the obvious choice being stall No. 1 at the exit from pit road.

 

The advantage of that pit box may be mitigated by the moving of the camera (timing) line 74 feet farther from the exit from the box.

 

“There’s a lot of racing left to be had, right?” Reddick said. “Today was an important step in that. Obviously, we wanted to out-qualify the 24 (Byron) to get the best pit stall. Arguably, who knows if one is as big of an advantage as it is in years past with the camera moving, but yeah, just trying to stay focused on all that.

 

“Obviously, I was hoping I was going to hang on and beat the 24. So, I mean, there’s just a little bit of that. We have the rest of the day today to kind of unwind and re-center and get ready to go for Sunday.”

 

Martin Truex Jr. is retiring—sort of—but he won’t be gone for long

After a stellar career that has spanned 21 NASCAR Cup Series seasons, Martin Truex Jr. is retiring from full-time racing at the end of the 2024 season.

 

That doesn’t mean, however, that we’ve seen the last of the 44-year-old from Mayetta, New Jersey. Truex already has plans to race in the 2025 Daytona 500 with Cole Pearn as his crew chief.

 

“Oh, yeah, I’m going to be there, racing the Cup car,” Truex said Saturday during an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I’m retiring, and I’m going to be at the very next race. So I’m not really sure what’s going on.

 

“But the thing is, when all these guys pack up to go to Mexico City, I’ll be on the couch somewhere or out on the boat fishing. Those are the days I’m looking forward to.”

 

Truex and Pearn teamed up at Furniture Row Racing and won the series championship in 2017. With Pearn on his pit box at FRR and Joe Gibbs Racing, Truex amassed 24 of his 34 career victories.

 

Next year’s Daytona 500 appearance will be Truex’s first foray into a more relaxed form of competition.

 

“This is a happy time for me,” said Truex, who won the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway. “I’m excited about the future. I’m not done racing. I’m not hanging it up. I’m just going to do it for fun again… With the pressure and the stress of this, being in the Cup Series and all that comes with that, there’s a lot of weight on your shoulders, and it’s hard to enjoy.

 

“Of course, when you win a bunch of races in a year, you look back and you say, ‘Man, that was awesome.’ What people miss is what it takes to do it, to sustain that level of competitiveness over the years. It takes a lot.

 

“It’s every day. It’s seven days a week. That’s all you ever think about, and you sacrifice a lot. I’m looking forward to racing the way I used to and enjoying it and just going back and having fun the old-school way.”

 

Stewart-Haas drivers will head in different directions after the organization’s closure

This weekend marks the final NASAR Cup Series entry for the four-car Stewart-Haas Racing team. Its drivers—Josh Berry, Chase Briscoe, Noah Gragson and Ryan Preece—will compete elsewhere next year, some with their futures secured, some still to be determined.

 

Berry, who scored a pair of top-five finishes and four top-10s after succeeding retired champion Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 SHR Ford, will move to the famed No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford next season.

Briscoe, the most successful of the four current SHR drivers and the only one to score a NASCAR Cup Series victory, will move to Joe Gibbs Racing, replacing former champion Martin Truex Jr. in the No. 19 Toyota.

 

Briscoe earned two wins in his four years at the NASCAR Cup Series level at Phoenix in 2022 and Darlington, S.C. this year earning a dramatic walk-off entry into the Playoffs.

 

Noah Gragson, who moves to Front Row Motorsports in 2025, scored seven top-10 finishes in his only season driving the SHR No. 10 Ford, highlighted by a career best third place at Talladega, Ala., this Spring. Ryan Preece competed for two seasons in the No. 41 SHR Ford, scoring a career-best finish of fourth at Nashville this year.

 

“To know that it’s all coming to an end is definitely bittersweet,’’ Briscoe said. “I was telling the guys last weekend at Martinsville, when we were eight days away from the company literally locking the doors, and we were still able to bring a car that, honestly, should’ve sat on the pole.

 

“That’s just a testament to everybody, and it’s just really, really cool and special that they’ve continued to put in that effort given the circumstances. But it’s going to be a tough weekend at Phoenix for a lot of different people and for a lot of different reasons.

 

“Hopefully, we can go out on top. That would be the coolest thing, if you could win the final race. And for me, just this whole season’s been really cool, just to obviously get a win in the final season for SHR and to get the 14 car at least where it’s competitive in its final season.’’

 

Ty Majeski wins NASCAR Truck Championship Race to secure first series title

getty images

November 09, 2024

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

 

AVONDALE, Ariz. — All Ty Majeski needed was a green-flag run to finish off his domination of Friday night’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race—a victory that earned him his first series title.

 

Majeski led 132 of 150 laps at one-mile Phoenix Raceway, and when the race-ending 27-lap green-flag run finally came, Majeski pulled away to a 3.945-second victory over Corey Heim, who recovered from a restart violation to finish second.

 

“I can’t believe it,” said Majeski, who won for the first time at Phoenix, the third time this season at the sixth time in his career. “Huge thank you to (ThorSport Racing team owners) Duke and Rhonda Thorson, (crew chief) Joe Shear Jr.—he’s one bad dude.

 

“This is so much fun racing with this group. I’m so proud to have the opportunity to drive these great race trucks. There’s a lot of times in my career when this looked like a far dream. Duke and Rhonda really gave me my third opportunity after I had two opportunities that failed—man, I can’t thank them enough.”

 

The championship was the second for Shear, who guided Johnny Sauter to the title with GMS Racing in 2016. For ThorSport, it was a series-record sixth championship, adding to three with Matt Crafton and two with 2023 champion Ben Rhodes.

 

ThorSport has won three of the last four Truck Series titles.

 

Heim restarted 19th on Lap 108 after his penalty and quickly moved forward, but the driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota couldn’t overcome the speed in Majeski’s No. 98 Ford.

 

“I’m really disappointed to come up short like that,” said Heim, who will return for a third season with TRICON next year. “It’s hard to even be upset. I did almost everything right except for that restart violation (changing lanes before the start/finish line).

 

“But we were able to get our track position back pretty quick and make the most of it. I just had nothing for the 98. All day, he was so fast… We’ll move forward with our heads up high, a six-win season—career highs for myself my team, organization, everybody—just one spot short of the championship.”

 

Championship 4 drivers Christian Eckes and Grant Enfinger finished third and fifth, respectively, after pitting for fresh tires on Lap 113. Though they were able to move through the field, they had nothing for the race winner.

 

Before the final green-flag run, three quick cautions—including a six minute, nine second red flag for a nine-truck wreck on the backstretch—interrupted the action at the start of the final stage, bringing the total for yellows to six for 43 laps. After Majeski got away in clean air from a restart on Lap 124, however, the race was over.

 

Starting from the pole position, Majeski streaked to a lead of more than two seconds, but Heim tracked him down in traffic and passed the No. 98 Ford for the top spot on Lap 39.

 

Three laps later the Ford of Frankie Muniz spun after contact with William Sawalich’s Toyota, ending the first 45-lap stage under caution.

 

But Majeski reclaimed the lead, with Eckes advancing to second, after Heim slid past the marks in his pit stall under the caution for the stage break and came out third.

 

Heim complained on the team radio channel that the concrete pit stall was one of the slickest he had ever experienced.

 

Majeski flipped the script in Stage 2, passing Heim for the top spot on Lap 71, six circuits after a restart that followed Jack Wood’s hard crash into the Turn 2 wall.

 

By the end of the stage at Lap 90, Majeski had expanded his advantage to 3.597 seconds. But stage wins were inconsequential to the Championship 4 contenders, who would settle possession of title in the frenetic final segment of the race.

 

Nick Sanchez finished fourth as the only non-Championship 4 driver to crack the top five. Taylor Gray was fifth, followed by Kaden Honeycutt, Connor Mosack, Rhodes and Layne Riggs.

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Race – NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship

Phoenix Raceway

Avondale, Arizona

Friday, November 8, 2024

 

  1. (1)  Ty Majeski (P), Ford, 150.
  2. (2)  Corey Heim (P), Toyota, 150.
  3. (4)  Christian Eckes (P), Chevrolet, 150.
  4. (7)  Nick Sanchez, Chevrolet, 150.
  5. (5)  Grant Enfinger (P), Chevrolet, 150.
  6. (14)  Taylor Gray, Toyota, 150.
  7. (8)  Kaden Honeycutt, Chevrolet, 150.
  8. (9)  Connor Mosack, Chevrolet, 150.
  9. (20)  Ben Rhodes, Ford, 150.
  10. (11)  Layne Riggs #, Ford, 150.
  11. (15)  Tanner Gray, Toyota, 150.
  12. (10)  Chase Purdy, Chevrolet, 150.
  13. (19)  Rajah Caruth, Chevrolet, 150.
  14. (27)  Jake Garcia, Ford, 150.
  15. (6)  Dean Thompson, Toyota, 150.
  16. (24)  Brett Moffitt, Chevrolet, 150.
  17. (13)  Conner Jones #, Ford, 150.
  18. (3)  Stewart Friesen, Toyota, 150.
  19. (22)  Matt Crafton, Ford, 150.
  20. (25)  Dawson Sutton, Chevrolet, 150.
  21. (18)  Bayley Currey, Chevrolet, 150.
  22. (29)  Timmy Hill, Toyota, 150.
  23. (23)  Stefan Parsons, Chevrolet, 149.
  24. (16)  Daniel Dye, Chevrolet, 149.
  25. (28)  Matt Mills, Chevrolet, 148.
  26. (33)  Nathan Byrd, Chevrolet, 147.
  27. (34)  Thad Moffitt #, Chevrolet, 147.
  28. (30)  Spencer Boyd, Chevrolet, 146.
  29. (32)  Keith McGee, Ford, 146.
  30. (35)  Lawless Alan, Ford, 146.
  31. (26)  Andres Perez de Lara, Chevrolet, Accident, 99.
  32. (17)  William Sawalich, Toyota, Accident, 98.
  33. (12)  Tyler Ankrum, Chevrolet, Accident, 98.
  34. (31)  Frankie Muniz, Ford, Accident, 95.
  35. (21)  Jack Wood, Chevrolet, Accident, 58.

 

Average Speed of Race Winner:  86.276 mph.

Time of Race:  1 Hrs, 44 Mins, 19 Secs. Margin of Victory:  3.945 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  6 for 43 laps.

Lead Changes:  7 among 3 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   T. Majeski (P) 1-38;C. Heim (P) 39-48;G. Enfinger (P) 49;T. Majeski (P) 50-64;C. Heim (P) 65-70;T. Majeski (P) 71-93;G. Enfinger (P) 94;T. Majeski (P) 95-150.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Ty Majeski (P) 4 times for 132 laps; Corey Heim (P) 2 times for 16 laps; Grant Enfinger (P) 2 times for 2 laps.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 11,98,19,2,9,5,7,38,66,52

Stage #2 Top Ten: 98,11,38,2,19,7,9,17,52,99

 

 

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion, Ty Majeski. Ty, I see you have a beer in your hand. Hopefully you didn’t learn too much from your teammate.

TY MAJESKI: It’s a lot quieter in here than in the barn for sure.

THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up to questions for Ty.

  1. The shoey seemed like you were a little apprehensive at first. How was it going down?

TY MAJESKI: Well, I didn’t want to get my sock wet. I’m paying for it now. My right sock is soaked.

No, it’s a little bit of, I guess, a tradition with ThorSport, so what are they now? 6 of 11 championships here. That’s phenomenal. It really is.

Duke and Rhonda Thorson, Alli Thorson, everybody at ThorSport has built such a mega team up in Sandusky, Ohio. We’re incredibly proud of that to bring home another champion to Sandusky. Being outside of Charlotte means a lot to us.

We put ourselves on an island. I feel like that can be an advantage and a disadvantage at times, but overall we control our own destiny. We build all out of own chassises, hang all our own bodies in house.

Like I said, we do control our own destiny. And that’s a big reason why when we find something, we can keep it to us, right? In Charlotte sometimes when you find an advantage, it can get spread around very quickly, but we can keep it to us up in Sandusky.

So just super proud to be a part of the ThorSport Racing organization, and happy to bring home another championship for them.

  1. Corey challenged you for a little bit tonight, but once you were able to get by him, you pulled away pretty much every time. Did you ever not feel in control or command of the race tonight?

TY MAJESKI: No, not really. Really I felt like we had a really good shot at winning this thing last night after practice. You know, over the course of my career, I’ve built up a notebook on what trucks need to feel like to win, and last night felt like a winner to me.

Yeah, it certainly was. We were super dominant tonight. Fell off a little bit on the long run on the first run of the race in stage one. Corey was able to get by me, but we made one small change and, yeah, propelled us to victory.

Joe does a great job. He’s one bad dude when is he on his game, and there’s nobody I would rather go to battle with other than him to win a championship. So super proud of him and how he’s prepared our guys to rise to the occasion when it counted, and our pit stops were phenomenal tonight.

I feel like, obviously, our truck was great. I feel like I did a good job on the restarts keeping control of the race, and that was the difference.

  1. I want to go back to 2021. So the Roush thing did not go well. You and Phil at Niece had a really tough season. I know you had some options you were trying to put together. I think after the Derby is when that first conversation happened with ThorSport. Was there ever a part of you that thought, okay, this is going to be really harder than I thought it was going to be? What ultimately is what swayed you to I want to go do the ThorSport thing instead of some of the other things you had on the table?

TY MAJESKI: Yeah, first of all, I want to go back to 2018 when Roush shut down their Xfinity program. Chad Bryant, a great friend of mine who I keep in contact with today, I probably talk to him at least once a week, he gave me a great opportunity in 2019. We went out and won three of five or six ARCA races that year, and propelled me into my opportunity with Niece.

Obviously that didn’t go as planned. December of 2020 won the Snowball Derby, and a couple of weeks later was in contact with the ThorSport organization on putting something together.

I had a few other opportunities that maybe would have yielded more races for 2021, but I decided to move up to Ohio. My wife and I made the decision to go up and really take a shot on a future, right, something that looked like that could be something that had longevity to it.

I went up in 2021 with ThorSport and only did three or four races and was on their roster as a full-time engineer. Did some engineering for Paul Menard, ran some truck races, and I was an engineer for them. I was scanning parts at the shop, really learning about the race trucks and how they’re built.

Every single part, every single truck went through me at one point or another, and I was able to learn really how these trucks work and how they operate.

When I got my opportunity full-time in 2022 with the 66 bunch at the time, with Joe Shear, we just hit the ground running. You know, obviously I wanted to be full-time in 2021, but looking back now and the experience that I gained by touching every single part that went into the race truck, I feel like helped my progression and happened earlier.

When I got that opportunity in 2022 to go full-time, we hit the ground running. We were competitive right off the bat. Obviously made it to the Championship 4. Didn’t win the championship, but yeah, just looking back at it, you can go back in your life, and you say, wow, there’s different decisions that changed your life and took a different direction, and that’s one of them that we made.

It was one of the better decision I’ve ever made to go with ThorSport. And Duke, Rhonda Thorson, they’ve built such a great culture up there, and just proud to carry the flag with them.

  1. I did not realize it until just now talking to Joe, but you and Joe didn’t really know each other, which surprised me, given the Wisconsin roots and Johnny. I’m curious, how much of the Midwestern roots, what Joe and Johnny did together, was that part of your thinking too that, hey, I want to go work with Joe, or did that kind of materialize later?

TY MAJESKI: Well, Joe and Johnny were chasing me for a little bit in Wisconsin. So Joe right away, he’s, like, Hey — I remember it vividly. I was at my little scanning station early in 2021. Hey, so what are you running for a setup in your late models? And I knew at the time it was probably going to go right to Johnny.

I told a couple of white lies (laughing). It’s just crazy looking back at all the races that Johnny and I have raced against each other. Obviously Joe Shear was a part of Johnny’s late model program. Just the timing was right to kind of carry that torch for Wisconsin and couple up with Joe Shear.

It was just a natural fit for myself and him. We had so many things to bond on beyond truck racing. And that’s one thing that I really hit on is driver/crew chief relationship. Our relationship is more than just, like I said, driver/crew chief. We’re friends. My wife knows I talk to Joe just about every day for a long time on how to make these trucks better and how to better ourselves going into these races week in and week out.

I feel like that’s one advantage we have on the rest of the field.

  1. You said on media day that the truck that you were bringing here and the setup were a departure from what you had done in the past. Can you elaborate a little bit on how they were different? Did you feel like you were taking a risk when you were doing that?

TY MAJESKI: Yeah, I’m not going to elaborate on how they were different. I’ll keep that to myself.

We were good the last couple of years here, but felt like we were lacking a little bit of longevity, and we saw that a little bit in the first stage where we had a dominating lead. It was a lot like last year where we built up a lead, and the 11 caught us. We were able to hold on for the stage win last year, but Corey was able to get by me this year. We made a really good change at the end of stage one to make our truck just that much better.

A lot of work went into sim. I was at the Ford sim at least once for Phoenix, and we were able to tune in the tire and make really good changes. Looking back at it now, the tire was really good, and we were able to make changes on it. Yeah, propel us to a championship.

Any time you can use your tools and trust your simulation that Ford Performance has given us is a good thing when you can trust your tools and have it correlate to real life.

  1. Can you take me kind of through the emotions of a week ago getting in and kind of knowing that, man, it very well could have worked out that you didn’t advance, and now six, seven days later you’re a champion?

TY MAJESKI: I think the biggest thing, Bob, is we really weren’t in control of our own destiny at Martinsville, and I had a lot more nerves going into that race than this weekend.

Like I said, because you can only control so much of the race. When the 17 put on tires and was coming through the field, I was helpless, right? You’re not in control of your own destiny.

Tonight or this weekend, for that matter, I knew our truck was really, really good last night, and we knew that we controlled the outcome. There’s just, I guess, a little calmness in that, and I was very relaxed this weekend.

I knew we had a great package coming here and a great truck last night, and I was incredibly confident throughout yesterday and throughout today. I knew we were going to be tough to beat.

  1. Ty, when the laps were ticking down and it was clear that the 19 and the 9, their fresher tires had worn out, and they were all losing ground, what was going through your head as you were inching closer to the checkered flag, especially when we saw what happened at the end of last year’s finale?

TY MAJESKI: Yeah, it was probably the longest 20 laps of my life. You know, Brian Lyons was counting each lap down one by one. I was, like, man, skip a couple to make it seem like it’s going a little quicker.

Obviously you’re waiting for that caution. That’s obviously the last thing I wanted to see. We had a great truck on the short and the long run tonight after the first stage.

Obviously the last thing I wanted to see was a yellow, but throughout the race I felt like no matter what happened we had a truck capable of fending off any type of challenger. In preparation for this race, I put a lot of emphasis on restarts because I felt like that’s where the last two championships were decided, was on restarts.

So put a lot of emphasis on that. Watched a lot of in-car cam from the Championship 4 last year and two years ago on what I could have done different in 2022 and how Ben won the championship last year. Just trying to perfect those restarts. That’s where races are won and lost in the Truck Series.

Track position is so important. I think Corey got me maybe on one restart. I don’t know how many restarts we had when I was the leader, but yeah, he got me on one of them. I was able to get him back and clean track.

Track position is king. We were able to hold on to a strong lead at the end of the race.

  1. With last week’s finish and how close you did come to potentially not making it to Phoenix, was there that kind of extra fire just to say that it’s bad news for everyone else the fact that you made it here?

TY MAJESKI: Yeah, yes and no. I thought the 19 made an interesting decision back at Martinsville. I feel like we’ve been a strong contender all year, and he was in a position to choose who he raced in Phoenix this weekend. Here we are as champions.

It’s crazy how one little decision by somebody else kind of can control your destiny, but I’ve been on the bad end of that stuff. I’m happy to take one.

  1. Ty, this kind of goes into what you’ve touched on already, but so much success this year on tracks like this, IRP, Richmond. What do you feel like you were able to learn or glean from those races in particular? Obviously each track has its own unique personality, right, but does anything from either of those two tracks translate to what you guys were able to do tonight?

TY MAJESKI: We studied real hard on load profiles of the racetracks. I’m going to get a little bit technical with you, but yeah, one and two is a lot like what we see at Milwaukee or IRP, and then three and four is a lot like Richmond. Max load going into — or going into one and two is on entry and exit, and then in three and four we’re seeing max says load in the center.

It’s kind of a combination of a little of IRP, a little of Richmond, a little bit of Milwaukee to come here because the track has two different corners here, and you have to combine those and try and make your truck versatile in both corners.

That’s something that we really focused on in the simulator. I was able to start off with our baseline last year, tune the tire in the Ford sim to my baseline, and knowing what the truck felt like the last two days, it was exactly how it felt in sim. That’s a testament to the Ford sim and all the work they’re putting in on their end to give us the tools that we need to go and compete for championships.

  1. Obviously you’re a champion of the Kulwicki Driver Development Program, a lot of great racing in Wisconsin, legends like Alan Kulwicki, Matt Kenseth. You’re now a NASCAR champion just like those guys. What does that mean to you?

TY MAJESKI: I’m glad you brought that up. You know, watching — I shouldn’t say watching. Looking back at Alan’s championship season and he was able to do a Polish victory lap here at Phoenix to make it really come full circle.

And I was the inaugural 2015 Kulwicki Driver Development Program Champion, and to come here as a NASCAR champion and do that Polish victory lap is so special for that program and Alan’s legacy. Was happy to carry that legacy on tonight. He was definitely in my thoughts as I was doing that victory lap.

Their program was really a jump-start to my career. It forced me to step outside of my comfort zone and run different races. My late model crew chief is back there, Toby Nuttleman. We went and put on a great season together in 2015 that propelled me to that championship.

Yeah, really took the next step in my career. We were able to use that money to build a new race car, and that race car went on to win us a ton of races.

Yeah, it’s just funny how one little situation can force you to win a championship and make a little bit of money and put that money back into the racing program and build a really good race car that puts you in position to win races. That’s why I’m sitting here today.

Just happy to carry that Wisconsin flag. A lot of great race car drivers have come out of Wisconsin and just super honored to be able to carry that flag this evening.

  1. So we learned tonight that your nickname is Golden Shoe. Clearly the team has embraced you. They’re super supportive of everything you’ve done. I was just curious, from your perspective, what makes that relationship so special?

TY MAJESKI: I’m not really sure. Duke and Rhonda are very, very good people. They like people that put their race team in position to win races, and it was just a natural fit, right?

They’re very good people, and we just hit it off right off the bat. My engineering mindset, Duke saw that in me and was able to give me an opportunity to go and work at his shop full-time in 2021 and 2022 and put me in the truck full-time as well in 2022 while working full-time with the shop.

Like I said before, that’s really what propelled me here today, is being able to learn the race truck inside and out. I really understand and can comprehend any part of the race truck, and I think that’s a huge advantage that I have on my competitors.

It’s just very cool to look back at those opportunities and how they came to fruition into a championship.

  1. You have alluded with your tenure with Roush. As far as the Ford program, how special is it to keep the moment going for Ford as far as winning championships and also for you knowing that you had a lot of trials and tribulations to get to this point?

TY MAJESKI: That’s four in a row. Got one this year, so two more to go. That would be phenomenal to make it, yeah, six in a row for Ford.

Yeah, they gave me my first shot. I always ran Ford motors, engines in my late models. We were always a part of their program at obviously a very low level. Ford and Roush gave me my first opportunity to sort of burst my way into the NASCAR scene. I call it the NASCAR funnel. Once you get in that funnel, you can kind of create different opportunities for yourself once you’re in that funnel.

Yeah, huge thank you for Ford. They gave me a simulation job in 2019 after Roush shut down their Xfinity program. Gave me a little bit of money. Every sim session I did — I didn’t do many of them, but it was enough to keep my head above water. As I mentioned before, that was in correlation with the Chad Bryant ARCA Racing program. I was able to win a few races, and I was able to kind of keep my head above water in the NASCAR scene and give me my next opportunity with Niece Motorsports.

Yeah, Ford is a great manufacturer and super proud to be carrying their colors as 2024 champion.

  1. Ty, I know you emphasize about the importance of late race restarts. Did you have any strategies in place for especially that late race — especially for that last race restart in the race? As a race car driver myself, I know the emphasis of having good late race restarts.

TY MAJESKI: You’re just trying to set them up and try and be unpredictable. That’s the biggest thing, is once you start becoming predictable, they can take advantage of that. Just trying to change it up a little bit in the restart box.

You only have so much that you can play with inside of that box. Like I said, yeah, just trying to be unpredictable and change up where you fire to keep those guys on their toes. Once you start firing in the same spot over and over again — this is elementary stuff, not giving out any secrets here — you make yourself vulnerable on restarts.

Like I said, just switching things up. I felt like I got a really good couple of last restarts there towards the end of the race that I was able to really clear myself by turn one and not have to worry about guys dive-bombing me.

  1. This win is huge for just the late model community. There’s already been a huge outpour for you on social media, and it just goes to show that the short track community, the grit, the resilience that you already had to go through just to get to this point. What I want to ask you, what would you say to all of the people who have supported you on the grassroots level, what would you say to them now that you’re here as a NASCAR Truck Series Champion?

TY MAJESKI: Yeah, just keep digging. The biggest thing that I have learned and my dad has taught me from a young age is surround yourself with good people and good things will happen.

Like I mentioned before, Toby Nuttleman, my crew chief, he’s just back here sharing this championship together. Even though he wasn’t a part of this specific championship, he’s a huge reason why I’m here talking to you right now as 2024 NASCAR Truck Series Champion.

You surround yourself with good people and stay grounded and never think you’re the best. That’s exactly when you are going to get beat. So just keeping grounded. Always keeping your head down. Always trying to get better each and every race. Whether you win or not, there’s always something that you could have probably done better in that race.

I was very big on watching — going back and watching film and understanding how the race played out, what I could have done different in different situations to be better. I think that’s — I haven’t been the best guy on restarts in this series. I’m not one of those aggressive guys. I feel like some of other guys are probably better on restarts than me, but you don’t want to put yourself in a situation to take yourself out of the race early.

I felt like I put myself in good positions tonight and executed very well on restarts. Pit crew did a great job. The truck was great. Executed on all levels, and very proud of our performance this evening.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time. Congratulations.

TY MAJESKI: Thank you. Appreciate it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
150432-1-1222 2024-11-09 05:27:00 GMT

 

NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 Media Day Notebook

 

Notebook Items:

  • Ryan Blaney hopes Championship Race is just as sweet the second time around
  • Years of Champ 4 experience have given Joey Logano sanguine perspective
  • William Byron is ignoring ‘outside noise’ as title race approaches
  • Tyler Reddick is focused on the Championship Race in first attempt at Cup title

 

November 7, 2024

 

By Holly Cain & Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

 

Ryan Blaney hopes Championship Race is just as sweet the second time around

 

AVONDALE, Ariz.— Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney smiled and acknowledged that having won a title in NASCAR’s premier series last year helped prepare him for his second shot this weekend.

 

Should the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford capture another title Sunday, he would be the first driver since Jimmie Johnson’s five-consecutive-championship run from 2006 through 2010 to win back-to-back titles. It would be the third consecutive for team owner Roger Penske, with teammate Joey Logano winning one in 2022.

 

“We have a chance to bring him (Penske) three in a row on the Cup side, and I’ve always thought internally to myself, ‘How do you make Roger proud?’” the 30-year-old Blaney explained.

 

“That’s my only goal in my racing life the last 12 years, how do I make Roger proud—because he’s given me my life really and bluntly—it’s to win races and win championships he hasn’t done before.

 

“And it’s a very small list of things he hasn’t done in motorsports, and we have a chance to do it for him. It’s just great to be in a position to do it for him, and we have two cars that can do it.

 

“He’s meant a ton to me, and it would mean the world just to keep bringing him things,” Blaney continued. “You can’t buy him anything, so you’ve got to win him championships and races, and that’s really all he cares about. It’s pretty amazing how dedicated he is to motorsports for how long he’s been in it.”

 

Blaney is coming off a walk-off victory, taking the trophy at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway last weekend, prevailing in a must-win, must-perform situation similar to what he will need to do this weekend at Phoenix to repeat.

 

A three-race winner this season with 11 top fives, Blaney is the No. 1 seed in this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (3 p.m. ET Sunday on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

He is bolstered, he says, by having learned a lot from last year’s experience—his first time racing for a championship. He’s comfortable, smiling and insisting no lucky trinkets or superstitions necessary.

 

“Mentally, I think it’s been a little bit different because I have some experience being in the Championship 4—last year was my first time and I was just excited to be a part of the Champ 4 and going for a title and still am,” he said. “But I had a lot of unknowns last year. I didn’t know how the week would go. This year, you just have more experience, and you know what to expect.

 

“I’ve always said, experience is kind of king over everything,” he added. “You just get more comfortable in these positions when you have the reps in it.”

 

Years of Champ 4 experience have given Joey Logano sanguine perspective 

 

At 34 years old, Joey Logano is competing in his 16th full-time season of NASCAR Cup Series racing, and on Sunday, he’ll try for his third series title in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford is the unrivaled veteran of Championship 4 events, having qualified for a record sixth this season. All his Championship 4 appearances have come in even-numbered years since NASCAR adopted the elimination format in 2014.

 

It was a relaxed, confident Logano who greeted reporters on NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 Media Day on Thursday at the one-mile flat track. That stood in sharp contrast to the driver who tried for his first title 10 years ago.

 

“It’s completely different,” said Logano, who shares the lead with Kyle Busch for most championships among full-time active drivers with two. “I remember my first time. How do you not get nervous the first time you sit in here, with all you guys talking.

 

“You’ve got the thoughts of what the championship would mean to your career, your team—and will you ever get another chance? It’s something you really want to click off and say you’re a NASCAR champion. All this stuff goes through your mind.

 

“That was something my first time that really… it got to me. I don’t see how it doesn’t, especially when you’re younger. Now you start to get comfortable in the scenario, you start to love the pressure and get excited more than nervous. That’s a big deal.”

 

A third title would put Logano in elite company, tied with Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and Tony Stewart—all NASCAR Hall of Famers. Only seven-time champions Richard Petty, Dale Earnhart Sr. and Jimmie Johnson and four-time champion Jeff Gordon have more.

 

Logano, however, isn’t concerned with his legacy just yet.

 

“When it comes to individually, I don’t think about it that much,” said Logano, who won the first of two straight titles for Team Penske in 2022. “I think of it more as a team, because I know what a championship is worth to everybody.

 

“So I think that matters more. The individual piece, to say you’ve got three of them, I mean that’s great, but I think because I’m still doing it, I don’t look at it that much. But I’d like to see the people that I care about on the race team celebrate.”

 

In order for the No. 22 team to celebrate, though, Logano will have to beat William Byron, Tyler Reddick and his own teammate, 2023 champion Ryan Blaney.

 

William Byron is ignoring ‘outside noise’ as title race approaches

 

William Byron stood anxiously next to his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet last Sunday on Martinsville (Va.) Speedway’s pit lane as NASCAR officials settled a points tiebreaker between Byron and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell—the winner receiving a ticket to the Championship Four, the other forced to wait until next year for a title opportunity.

 

Byron acknowledged the wait seemed like eternity, but this year’s Daytona 500 winner received the news that he “was in”—thanks to a Bell penalty—and maintains he instantaneously turned his thoughts to winning his first NASCAR Cup Series title as the lone Chevrolet driver among the four title contenders this weekend at Phoenix.

 

On the drive home from Martinsville to Charlotte, Byron shared that he put his cell phone away and arrived home “kind of excited… it was kind of relaxing.”

 

The 25-year-old Charlotte native and 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion will benefit from his 14-time-championship Hendrick team being able to focus its massive resources and efforts on his iconic No. 24 Chevrolet.

 

Byron won at Phoenix in the spring of 2023 and has four top-five finishes through the opening nine races of this year’s Playoffs. He is one top-10 away from tying his personal best of 21 in 2023.

 

“I haven’t ever felt as bonded to my team as I am now,” said Byron, who finished a career-best third in the 2023 championship standings. “We had a meeting on Sunday night about it, and I feel like we turned the page really, really quickly.

 

“For me personally, I’ve blocked out a ton of the noise. I haven’t looked at social media. I don’t really care. I’m just trying to focus on getting the 24 car as fast as I can. I think past experiences have probably helped fuel that. I’ve been through enough BS in my Cup career that I know what to focus on and what to block out.

 

“I just want to do a great job for my team. I feel honestly Sunday night is a huge opportunity for us to go out and win the championship.”

 

Tyler Reddick is focused on the Championship Race in first attempt at Cup title

 

If the spring event at Phoenix Raceway is an indication, Tyler Reddick has cause for optimism entering Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at the one-mile track (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

Five Toyota drivers combined to lead 298 of 312 laps in that race, with Reddick tying his 23XI Racing team owner, Denny Hamlin, with a race-high 68. Ultimately, Reddick finished 10th behind winner Christopher Bell, who led 50 circuits.

 

Before this season, Reddick finished third in the spring races of 2022 and 2023, but he says there’s a reason to take his more lackluster results in previous championship races with a grain of salt, given that this is his first time at Phoenix with a chance to win the Cup title.

 

“I feel like those other years, the season’s just getting rolling (in the spring), and you come here, you go with what you know, and I feel like I’ve ran well. We come back here for Championship Weekend when we haven’t been part of it, that’s our opportunity to try something, to learn something, to take risks with strategy, so it’s not always guaranteed to work out.

 

“Yeah, it’s been hit-or-miss from that aspect, but certainly when the car’s been very capable, I’ve been able to find ways to get a little bit of speed out of it or just get the speed that the car has out of it and have a potentially good weekend…

 

“It’s nice to know that when we really focus on this weekend and bring what we know is going to work good, we have speed.”

 

Reddick comes to Phoenix having qualified for the Championship by winning from the pole Oct. 27 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the same track where he locked up consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series titles in 2018 and 2019.

 

Reddick is the only Toyota driver to win a Cup race since Bell triumphed at New Hampshire on June 23.

NEWSWIRE: NASCAR Xfinity Series & CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship 4 Media Day Notebook

November 07, 2024

Notebook Items:

  • Justin Allgaier is poised and prepared to run for elusive NASCAR Xfinity title
    •
  • Cole Custer wants to cap Stewart-Haas career with another title
  • Christian Eckes likes his chances in NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck title race
  • With new deal for 2025, Corey Heim is focused on NASCAR Truck Championship Race

 

November 7, 2024

 

By Holly Cain & Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

 

Justin Allgaier is poised and prepared to run for elusive NASCAR Xfinity title

 

AVONDALE, Ariz. — JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier arrives at Phoenix Raceway as the most seasoned NASCAR Xfinity Series driver competing for the 2024 championship.

 

The 38-year-old Illinois-native will be making his seventh appearance in the Championship 4 Round and third in a row — but will be racing for the first title in a 25-win, 15-year career in the series in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race (7 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

Allgaier’s two Phoenix wins in the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet (in 2017 and 2019) are most among the four Championship-eligible drivers, but his best showing in the final championship standings is runner-up last season and in 2020.

 

This season, Allgaier has 19 top-10 finishes, including a pair of victories (at Darlington, S.C., and Michigan) and has led 705 laps, his second-highest total in the last four years, with a race still remaining.

 

“I think it’s understated what this team has really accomplished,” Allgaier said Thursday during NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship 4 Media Day at the track. “[Crew chief] Jim Pohlman told me two weeks ago, ‘We’re going to go win Phoenix, it’s just a matter of whether you race for a championship or not. If we’re going to raise a trophy, I’d rather it be the big one rather than the little one.’ 

 

“He’s very confident in that, and to have your leader of your group that confident kind of exudes confidence through everybody.”

 

“The confidence level is high. We’re ready to go,” he added. “When you show up here with a group that you know is capable of executing at a high level, it makes it a lot more fun, knowing everybody’s on the same page.”

 

Allgaier conceded his experience overall—and specifically at racing for a championship—has played a major role in his approach.

 

“I feel like in years past, I’ve kind of carried it on my back of like, you have to go here and there, lead every lap, qualify on the pole,” Allgaier said. “You get caught up in that mentality. Last year, I spun out on Lap 5 just trying to get in front of the other Playoff cars. That’s not what we needed to do.

 

“I’m just looking at this [Championship Race] a lot differently than I have in years past. I don’t feel the pressure of the championship like I have in years past. I come to this weekend, and I think being here as many times as I have and it’s not worked out, you get this sense of peace of like, ‘I’ve been here before and not been able to accomplish it.’ So, with a different mindset we’ll see what happens.”

 

Cole Custer wants to cap Stewart-Haas career with another title

 

Cole Custer’s life is about to change again—and he wants it to happen with as much gusto as possible.

 

The reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion is carrying the banner for Stewart-Haas Racing, which will cease to exist at season’s end.

 

Next year, Custer will return to the NASCAR Cup Series with reconstituted Haas Factory Team, but he would like nothing better than to reward the current ownership and employees at Stewart-Haas with a second straight title in the No. 00 Ford.

 

“We had a going-away party on Tuesday and seeing all the people that have been there for so long… everybody’s had a part in our team,” Custer said. “We used a lot of notes from the Cup guys (Chase Briscoe, Ryan Preece, Noah Gragson and Josh Berry).

 

“We asked a lot of questions. A lot of guys have touched that car. It definitely means a ton if we can try to finish this thing out strong… It would mean so much to everybody in that building, but at the same time, I think it would be so cool to see (co-owners) Tony (Stewart’s) and Gene (Haas) names go out on top.”

 

From a personal perspective, Custer would join an impressive list of consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series title winners that includes Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Tyler Reddick.

 

“It would be huge,” Custer said, “and from another standpoint, just having the shot to win a championship in NASCAR—you don’t get a ton of shots at that, so you want to make every single opportunity at that count.

 

“So, we’re going to try to make that happen and hopefully have that title again.”

 

To accomplish the goal, Custer will have to beat veterans Justin Allgaier and AJ Allmendinger, along with Championship 4 newcomer Austin Hill. He’ll also have to deal with a challenging one-mile, irregularly-shaped race track.

 

“You’re taking a 3,000-pound stock car and trying to make it go around a flat corner,” Custer said. “So, it’s very difficult to make the car do that. The two ends are different, and trying to get the car to work at every single point isn’t easy, because it’s so different.

 

“(The track is) starting to get some age to it, so the tires are falling off throughout a run, so you have to have a little bit of everything here.”

 

Christian Eckes likes his chances in NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck title race

 

Christian Eckes makes his debut in the Championship 4 as an absolute favorite to hoist his first series trophy.

 

Not only is he coming off a dramatic win in last weekend’s Martinsville (Va.) Speedway race, but he is also the only one among the four title contenders to have a past win at the Phoenix Raceway mile—claiming the trophy last year although he wasn’t part of the Championship 4.

 

The 23-year-old New York native likes his chances but says he’s kept his week purposely ‘business as usual’ entering Friday night’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

“We have momentum, but it’s Phoenix, anything can happen,” said the driver of the No. 19 McAnally Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet Silverado, who has an amazing 21 top-10 finishes in the 22 races this year, including four wins.

 

“All you have to do is be good at one race and that’s this weekend. You can be good all year or you can be bad all year, come win this race and you’re a champion. I don’t necessarily look at momentum, but I’d say it was on our side if there was some.”

 

Further, Eckes says he’s not overly concerned with payback in Friday night’s race following the thrilling finish at Martinsville—a race he dominated but had to come back and make aggressive passes in the closing laps to win. That involved contact with two-time series champion Ben Rhodes and Taylor Gray, who was racing for a Championship 4 position.

 

“I talked to Ben because I felt like, he hit me first for sure, I hit him and then I hit him again so I was disappointed with the second contact, although it wasn’t intentional,” Eckes said. “I reached out to him because I felt it was warranted. I did not reach out to Taylor, because I didn’t think he wanted to hear what I had to say.

 

“Same deal though, he hit me before that caution came out, and I hit him back—maybe a little harder than I probably should have—but at the end of the day, I’m happy we won the race and just moving on to Phoenix.”

 

With new deal for 2025, Corey Heim is focused on NASCAR Truck Championship Race

 

For Corey Heim, last year’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race fell apart in the final stage—in a big way.

 

After starting from the pole, finishing second in the first stage and winning the second stage, Heim was collected in an accident on Lap 120 triggered by fellow championship contender Carson Hocevar.

 

His title hopes gone, Heim retaliated against Hocevar on Lap 147 and took the checkered flag in 18th-place after 29 crash-filled laps of overtime. Ben Rhodes won his second series championship with a fifth-place finish to Grant Enfinger’s sixth.

 

Heim has learned a lot since then. In 2024, he has six victories to his credit, doubling his total from a year ago, and he comes to the Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway armed with a contract to drive for TRICON Garage full-time for a third straight season.

 

“I don’t flash back to last year as a redemption by any means, but I’m as motivated as anyone sitting in the room,” Heim said on Thursday during NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship 4 Media Day at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert.

 

“I certainly learned a lot from last year, just circumstantially and how to handle myself in tough situations, but I feel like every race this year I’ve grown as a driver, and I feel like I’ve done that every race with TRICON ever since I started out with those guys.”

 

Though the 22-year-old from Marietta, Ga., has won more races this year, he also has been more inconsistent.

 

“A lot of people talk about how we’ve been more hit-or-miss this year,” Heim said. “Compared to last year, I feel like we were always top five but couldn’t quite close the deal out. This year, it seems like we’re dominating (and) winning, or we’re kind of struggling a little bit.

 

“I feel like our stuff is as good as anybody’s when we’re on point, and we’ve just got to be on point this weekend.”

 

As to his future beyond the Championship Race, Heim felt another season with TRICON was his best choice.

 

“There’s always options on the table,” said Heim, who also has run 13 NASCAR Xfinity Series races for owner Sam Hunt this season. “But I never had a doubt that my development with Toyota Racing has led me to where I am today, and it’ll get me through the future as well—so it wasn’t a hard decision.”

NASCAR National Series News & Notes – Phoenix Raceway Championship Weekend

November 06, 2024

NASCAR Cup Series

Next Race: NASCAR Cup Series Championship

The Place: Phoenix Raceway

Track Type: 1 Mile Asphalt Oval

The Date: Sunday, November 10

The Time: 3 p.m. ET

The Purse: $11,700,064

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

Track Type: 1 Mile Asphalt Oval

The Date: Saturday, November 9

The Time: 7:30 p.m. ET

The Purse: $1,772,722

TV: CW, 7 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

Track Type: 1 Mile Asphalt Oval

The Date: Friday, November 8

The Time: 8 p.m. ET

The Purse: $822,570

TV: FS1, 8 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)

 

NASCAR Cup Series

 

Time Is Now: Championship Four to vie for the Bill France Performance Cup in Phoenix

For four drivers – Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and William Byron - an entire season’s worth of work will come down to this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway this Sunday, Nov. 10 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).

 

Outperforming the rest of the Playoff field through the previous nine weeks of the postseason, has landed these four elite competitors into the series’ Championship 4 Round vying for the title this weekend.

 

The chart below is a look at this season’s Championship 4 Round drivers and how they have performed this year to this point.

 

2024

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Ryan Blaney

35

3

11

17

1

555

8,598

6.45%

13.1

15.6

89.3

Joey Logano

35

3

6

12

3

307

9,123

3.37%

12.3

17.6

84.2

Tyler Reddick

35

3

12

20

3

597

9,170

6.51%

10.2

13.4

90.0

William Byron

35

3

12

20

1

338

9,225

3.66%

9.6

13.2

91.8

Totals & Averages

  

12

41

69

8

1,797

36,116

5.0%

11.3

15.0

88.8

Winning Percentage

34.29%

            

 

This season, the Team Penske teammates Joey Logano (2018, 2022) and Ryan Blaney (2023) are looking to add another championship to their resumes and bring Team Penske its third consecutive Cup title, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Hendrick Motorsports won five straight with NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson from 2006-2010.

 

If Logano were to win the championship this weekend, he would become just the 10th different driver to win three or more titles in the series, and the only full-time active driver to accomplish the feat.

 

If Blaney wins the championship this weekend, he will become the 18th different driver to win multiple championships in the Cup Series, and will join Logano (2018, 2022) and Kyle Busch (2015, 2019) as the third full-time active driver with multiple championships.

 

Looking to add their names to the prestigious NASCAR Cup Series Champions list are 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick and Hendrick Motorsport’s William Byron. If either Reddick or Byron were to win the title this weekend, they would become the 37th different driver to earn a championship in the series and just the eighth active full-time driver to accomplish the feat.

 

This season’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 contenders

This weekend the fans are in for a treat.

 

The drama in this year’s Playoffs is so thick you could cut it with a knife, and four of the sport’s top drivers and teams are scheduled to battle it out one last time on a 1-mile oval in the Arizona desert, with the highest finishing contender of the Championship 4 taking home the hardware.

 

Here is a quick way to get to know this season’s Championship 4 Round contenders (in order of seeding).

 

Ryan Blaney (No. 12 Team Penske Ford)

·       Organization: Team Penske

·       Team: No. 12 Ford

·       Crew Chief: Jonathan Hassler

 

2024 Season Rundown:

·       Three wins, 11 top fives, 17 top 10s, one pole

·       Led 555 laps

·       Average Finish of 15.6

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 89.3, seventh-best

 

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       Eight top fives, 12 top 10s, three poles

·       Average Finish of 10.941, third-best

·       Average Running Position of 9.477, second-best

·       Driver Rating of 99.2, fourth-best

·       4,468 Laps in the Top 15 (83.9%), series-most

 

Championship Outlook:

·       Team Penske has four NASCAR Cup Series driver and owner championships (2023, '22, '18, '12). Team Penske is looking to win their third consecutive title this weekend and the fifth overall for the organization. If Team Penske wins the NASCAR Cup Series championship this weekend, they will tie Joe Gibbs Racing for fifth on the all-time owner champions wins list with five titles each.

 

·       Ryan Blaney won the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series championship with the No. 12 Team Penske Ford team and will attempt to defend his title this weekend. If Blaney wins the championship this weekend, he will become the first driver since NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson (2006-2010) to win consecutive titles and the 18th driver all-time with multiple titles.

 

·       Jonathan Hassler won his first championship last season with driver Ryan Blaney and the No. 12 Team Penske Ford team. If Hassler wins the championship this weekend, he will become the first crew chief since NASCAR Hall of Famer Chad Knaus (2006-2010) to win consecutive titles and the 17th crew chief all-time with multiple championships.

 

Joey Logano (No. 22 Team Penske Ford)

·       Organization: Team Penske

·       Team: No. 22 Ford

·       Crew Chief: Paul Wolfe

 

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, six top fives, 12 top 10s, three poles

·       Led 307 laps

·       Average Finish of 17.6

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 84.2, ninth-best

 

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       Three wins, eight top fives, 16 top 10s, two poles

·       Average Finish of 13.484, eighth-best

·       Average Running Position of 11.817, eighth-best

·       Driver Rating of 93.4, eighth-best

·       6,770 Laps in the Top 15 (69.9%), eighth-most

 

Championship Outlook:

·       Team Penske has four NASCAR Cup Series driver and owner championships (2023, '22, '18, '12). Team Penske is looking to win their third consecutive title this weekend and the fifth overall for the organization. If Team Penske wins the NASCAR Cup Series championship this weekend, they will tie Joe Gibbs Racing for fifth on the all-time owner champions wins list with five titles each.

 

·       Joey Logano has won two NASCAR Cup Series championships in his career (2018, 2022) with the No. 22 Team Penske Ford team. If Logano wins the championship this weekend, he will become the 10th driver all-time with three or more titles and the only active full-time driver to accomplish the feat.

 

·       Paul Wolfe, a two-time series champion, won his first championship in 2012 with driver Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Team Penske Ford team and then earned his second title in 2022 with driver Joey Logano and the No. 22 Team Penske Ford team (his current team). If Wolfe wins the championship this weekend, he will become the seventh different crew chief all-time to win three or more championships.

 

Tyler Reddick (No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota)

·       Organization: 23XI Racing

·       Team: No. 45 Toyota

·       Crew Chief: Billy Scott

 

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, 12 top fives, 20 top 10s, three poles

·       Led 597 laps

·       Average Finish of 13.4

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 90.0, sixth-best

 

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       Two top fives, three top 10s

·       Average Finish of 17.889, 17th-best

·       Average Running Position of 13.126, 10th-best

·       Driver Rating of 82.3, 13th-best

·       1,754 Laps in the Top 15 (62.3%), 11th-most

 

Championship Outlook:

·       23XI Racing is looking to win their first NASCAR Cup Series championship this weekend. If 23XI Racing wins the NASCAR Cup Series championship this weekend, they will become the 31st different organization to win a championship in the series all-time.

 

·       Tyler Reddick, in his first Championship 4 Round appearance, is looking to win his first NASCAR Cup Series championship. If Reddick wins the championship this weekend, he will become the 37th different driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship, and just the fourth driver to win the Regular Season Championship and the overall season title in the same year joining Martin Truex Jr. (2017), Kyle Busch (2019) and Kyle Larson (2021).  

 

·       Billy Scott, in his first Championship 4 Round appearance, is looking to win his first NASCAR Cup Series championship. If Scott wins the championship this weekend, he will become the 44th different crew chief to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship.  

 

William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet)

·       Organization: Hendrick Motorsports

·       Team: No. 24 Chevrolet

·       Crew Chief: Rudy Fugle

 

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, 12 top fives, 20 top 10s, one pole

·       Led 338 laps

·       Average Finish of 13.2

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 91.8, fifth-best

 

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       One win, two top fives, seven top 10s, one pole

·       Average Finish of 11.769, sixth-best

·       Average Running Position of 10.015, fourth-best

·       Driver Rating of 93.6, seventh-best

·       3,222 Laps in the Top 15 (79.3%), third-most

 

Championship Outlook:

·       Hendrick Motorsports has 14 NASCAR Cup Series driver and owner championships (2021, '20, '16, '13, '10, '09, '08, '07, '06, '01, '98, '97, '96, '95) – the series-most all-time. Hendrick Motorsports, in their 40th year, is looking to win their 15th NASCAR Cup Series title this weekend.

 

·       William Byron, in his second Championship 4 Round appearance (2023, ’24), is looking to win his first NASCAR Cup Series championship. If Byron wins the championship this weekend, he will become the 37th different driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship.  

 

·       Rudy Fugle, in his second Championship 4 Round appearance (2023, ’24), is looking to win his first NASCAR Cup Series championship. If Fugle wins the championship this weekend, he will become the 44th different crew chief to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship.  

 

Phoenix Championship Weekend awaits the NASCAR Cup Series

It was announced in March of 2019 that the NASCAR Cup Series would be moving its Playoffs’ Championship Race from Homestead-Miami Speedway, where it had resided since the inception of the Playoffs in 2004, to Phoenix Raceway for the first time in 2020. Prior to the 2020 season, Homestead-Miami Speedway hosted the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs’ season finale for 16 seasons (from 2004-2019). Phoenix Raceway is just the second track to host the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race in the Playoffs.

 

Since the inception of the Playoffs in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2004, Phoenix Raceway has occupied three different positions on the postseason schedule. In 2004, Phoenix Raceway hosted the eighth race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs – the event was won by NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. Then from 2005 – 2019 (15 seasons), Phoenix Raceway has hosted the penultimate race (ninth) in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. The 2024 season marks the fifth year the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race will be held at Phoenix Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona (2020-2024).

 

Since Phoenix has played host to the Championship Race in the NASCAR Cup Series, starting in 2020, there have been four different champions – Chase Elliott (2020), Kyle Larson (2021), Joey Logano (2022) and Ryan Blaney (2023).

 

Make sure to catch all the Phoenix Raceway on-track action this weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series practice is scheduled for this Friday, Nov. 8 at 6 p.m. ET on the USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

 

Playoff Crunch Time: Who steps up at Phoenix?

Phoenix Raceway has occupied some pivotal positions on the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff schedules, and the drivers that have stepped-up and won when it mattered most (Playoff time) in the Valley of the Sun have enjoyed the spoils that come with it.

 

A total of 12 different drivers have won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff races at Phoenix Raceway. Veteran Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in Playoff race wins at Phoenix Raceway with four victories (2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014). Jimmie Johnson leads all active drivers this weekend with three wins (2007-2009).

 

Since hosting the series’ Championship Race (2020-2023), the winner of the race has also won the NASCAR Cup Series title in three of the last four seasons - Chase Elliott won at Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 8, 2020, Kyle Larson won at Phoenix on Nov. 7, 2021, and Joey Logano won at Phoenix on Nov. 6, 2022. Last season, Ryan Blaney finished runner-up at Phoenix to win his first title.

 

Among the Championship Four drivers this season – Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and William Byron – Logano is the only driver to win a Playoff race at Phoenix previously and has done so twice – in 2016 and 2022.

 

NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Race Winners at Phoenix Raceway

Track

Date

Race No.

Race Winner

Crew Chief

Organization

Phoenix

11/7/2004

34

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Tony Eury Sr.

Dale Earnhardt, Inc.

Phoenix

11/13/2005

35

Kyle Busch

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/12/2006

35

Kevin Harvick

Todd Berrier

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/11/2007

35

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/9/2008

35

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/15/2009

35

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/14/2010

35

Carl Edwards

Bob Osborne

RFK Racing

Phoenix

11/13/2011

35

Kasey Kahne

Kenny Francis

Red Bull Racing

Phoenix

11/11/2012

35

Kevin Harvick

Gil Martin

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/10/2013

35

Kevin Harvick

Gil Martin

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/9/2014

35

Kevin Harvick

Rodney Childers

Stewart-Haas Racing

Phoenix

11/15/2015

35

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Greg Ives

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/13/2016

35

Joey Logano

Todd Gordon

Team Penske

Phoenix

11/12/2017

35

Matt Kenseth

Jason Ratcliff

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/11/2018

35

Kyle Busch

Adam Stevens

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/10/2019

35

Denny Hamlin

Christopher Gabehart

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/8/2020

36

Chase Elliott

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/7/2021

36

Kyle Larson

Cliff Daniels

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/6/2022

36

Joey Logano

Paul Wolfe

Team Penske

Phoenix

11/5/2023

36

Ross Chastain

Philip Surgen

Trackhouse Racing

 

In addition, 16 different crew chiefs have won a NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, led by NASCAR Hall of Famer Chad Knaus with three wins (at Phoenix from 2007-2009 all with driver Jimmie Johnson).

 

Plus, a total of nine different organizations have won a NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, led by Hendrick Motorsports with seven wins (2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2015, 2020, 2021).

Five times a non-Playoff driver has won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway: Kyle Busch (2005), Kasey Kahne (2011), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2015), Matt Kenseth (2017) and Ross Chastain (2023).

 

·       In 2005, Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was ranked 19th in the point standings at the time of the win.

 

·       In 2011, Kasey Kahne won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was ranked 14th in the point standings at the time of the win.

 

·       In 2015, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was seventh in the point standings at the time of the win. Earnhardt Jr. had made the Playoffs in 2015 but was eliminated in the Round of 12.

 

·       In 2017, Matt Kenseth won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was seventh in points at the time of the win. Kenseth had made the Playoffs in 2017 but was eliminated in the Round of 12.

 

·       In 2023, Ross Chastain won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the Championship race on the postseason schedule, and he was ninth in points at the time of the win. Chastain had made the Playoffs in 2023 but was eliminated in the Round of 12.

 

The worst finish in a NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway by a driver that went on to win the title the same season was 38th by Jimmie Johnson in 2016 - then the penultimate event of the season.

 

Last season in the Championship Race at Phoenix, the Championship 4 Round drivers finished second (Ryan Blaney), third (Kyle Larson), fourth (William Byron) and 36th (Christopher Bell) – it was the first time in the Playoffs’ elimination format (2014-Present) that the champion did not win the Championship Race.

 

Looking Back: Phoenix Raceway and the NASCAR Cup Series

In total, Phoenix Raceway has hosted 56 NASCAR Cup Series races producing 27 different pole winners and 31 different race winners. The inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was held on November 6, 1988 and was won by NASCAR Hall of Famer Alan Kulwicki.

 

Ryan Newman (2002, 2003, 2004, 2008) and Kyle Busch (2006, 2012, 2016, 2019) lead the NASCAR Cup Series in poles at Phoenix Raceway with four each.

 

This weekend, 11 of the 27 NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix Raceway pole winners are active, and three of the 11 are Championship 4 Round drivers – Ryan Blaney (three poles), Joey Logano (two poles) and William Byron (one pole).

 

Active Phoenix Pole Winners

Poles

Seasons

Kyle Busch

4

2006, 2012, 2016, 2019

Denny Hamlin

3

2024, 2005, 2014

Ryan Blaney

3

2017, 2019, 2022

Jimmie Johnson

3

2015, 2013, 2008

Kyle Larson

2

2021, 2023

Joey Logano

2

2017, 2022

Martin Truex Jr

2

2009, 2018

William Byron

1

2023

Chase Elliott

1

2020

Alex Bowman

1

2016

Brad Keselowski

1

2014

 

Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in wins at Phoenix Raceway with nine victories (2006 sweep, 2012 Playoff race, 2013 Playoff race, 2014 sweep, 2015 Spring race, 2016 Spring race, 2018 Spring race). Jimmie Johnson leads all active Cup drivers this weekend in wins at Phoenix Raceway with four (2007, 2008 sweep, 2009).

 

This Sunday, 10 of the 31 NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix Raceway winners are active, and two of the 10 are Championship 4 contenders this season – Joey Logano (2016, 2022) and William Byron (2023).

 

Active Phoenix Race Winners

Wins

Seasons

Jimmie Johnson

4

2009, 2008 sweep, 2007

Joey Logano

3

2022, 2020, 2016

Kyle Busch

3

2019, 2018, 2005

Denny Hamlin

2

2019, 2012

Christopher Bell

1

2024

Ross Chastain

1

2023

William Byron

1

2023

Chase Briscoe

1

2022

Kyle Larson

1

2021

Martin Truex Jr

1

2021

Chase Elliott

1

2020

 

 

At Phoenix this weekend, NASCAR Cup Series Busch Light Pole Qualifying will be held on Saturday, Nov. 9 at 5 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on the USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

 

Championship Race: A deep dive into the NASCAR Cup Series season finale

When it comes time to win or go home, there is no bigger stage in NASCAR than the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway this Sunday, Nov. 10 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).

 

A total of 14 different drivers have won the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race during the Playoff Era (2004-Present).

 

Greg Biffle leads the NASCAR Cup Series in Championship Race wins during the Playoff Era with three victories (2004, 2005, 2006 – all at Homestead-Miami Speedway).

 

Joey Logano (2018 Homestead, 2022 Phoenix), Denny Hamlin (2009, 2013 both at Homestead) and Kyle Busch (2015, 2019 both at Homestead) lead all active drivers in NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race wins with two each.

 

NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race Winners (2004-2023)

Date

Track

Race Winner

Crew Chief

Organization

11/21/2004

Homestead

Greg Biffle

Doug Richert

RFK Racing

11/20/2005

Homestead

Greg Biffle

Doug Richert

RFK Racing

11/19/2006

Homestead

Greg Biffle

Doug Richert

RFK Racing

11/18/2007

Homestead

Matt Kenseth

Robbie Reiser

RFK Racing

11/16/2008

Homestead

Carl Edwards

Bob Osborne

RFK Racing

11/22/2009

Homestead

Denny Hamlin

Mike Ford

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/21/2010

Homestead

Carl Edwards

Bob Osborne

RFK Racing

11/20/2011

Homestead

Tony Stewart

Darian Grubb

Stewart-Haas Racing

11/18/2012

Homestead

Jeff Gordon

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

11/17/2013

Homestead

Denny Hamlin

Darian Grubb

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/16/2014

Homestead

Kevin Harvick

Rodney Childers

Stewart-Haas Racing

11/22/2015

Homestead

Kyle Busch

Adam Stevens

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/20/2016

Homestead

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

11/19/2017

Homestead

Martin Truex Jr

Cole Pearn

Furniture Row Racing

11/18/2018

Homestead

Joey Logano

Todd Gordon

Team Penske

11/17/2019

Homestead

Kyle Busch

Adam Stevens

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/8/2020

Phoenix

Chase Elliott

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

11/7/2021

Phoenix

Kyle Larson

Cliff Daniels

Hendrick Motorsports

11/6/2022

Phoenix

Joey Logano

Paul Wolfe

Team Penske

11/5/2023

Phoenix

Ross Chastain

Philip Surgen

Trackhouse Racing

 

In addition, 14 different crew chiefs have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race, led by Doug Richert with three wins (all at Homestead-Miami from 2004-2006 and all with driver Greg Biffle).

 

Plus, a total of seven different organizations have won the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (2004-2023), led by RFK Racing with six victories (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 - all at Homestead-Miami).

Hendrick Motorsports leads all organizations in NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race wins at Phoenix Raceway with two (2020, 2021).  

 

Since the inception of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in 2004, the winner of the Championship Race has won the season title 10 times: 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

 

·       In 2011, Tony Stewart won from the 15th starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and as a result secured his third-career NASCAR Cup Series championship in the closest points battle in series history – tied with Carl Edwards – Stewart won the title by virtue of the tiebreaker: most wins.

 

·       In 2014, Kevin Harvick won from the fifth starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the first year of the elimination-style format of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, as a result he won his first series title.  

 

·       In 2015, Kyle Busch won from the third starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the second year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, as a result he won his first series championship.

 

·       In 2016, Jimmie Johnson won from the 14th starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the third year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he tied NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the series-most championships with seven each.

 

·       In 2017, Martin Truex Jr. won from the second starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the fourth year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship.  

 

·       In 2018, Joey Logano won from the fifth starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the fifth year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship.

 

·       In 2019, Kyle Busch won from the fourth starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the sixth year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he became just the second active driver at the time with multiple titles (20115, 2019) joining seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson.    

 

·       In 2020, Chase Elliott won from the first starting position at Phoenix Raceway in the seventh year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship. Worth noting, Elliott was served a pre-race penalty and as a result of serving the penalty he actually started the race from back of the field and still won.  

 

·       In 2021, Kyle Larson won from the pole position at Phoenix Raceway in the eighth year of the elimination-style format of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship.    

 

·       In 2022, Joey Logano won from the pole position at Phoenix Raceway in the ninth year of the elimination-style format of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. With the win, Logano earned his second NASCAR Cup Series championship (2018, 2022), becoming just the second active driver with multiple titles.    

 

The worst finish in a Playoff race by the eventual series champion at Homestead-Miami Speedway was 15th, and it occurred three times: Tony Stewart in 2005, Jimmie Johnson in 2008 and Brad Keselowski in 2012. 

 

Three non-Playoff drivers have won the season finale Playoff race: Greg Biffle (Homestead: 2004 and 2006), Denny Hamlin (Homestead: 2013) and Ross Chastain (Phoenix: 2023).  

 

By The Numbers: Phoenix Raceway & the Season Finale

Below are some key stats and figures to take note of this Championship Weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

 

0.10 – Since the advent of electronic scoring (1993), the closest margin of victory in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway is the Spring race of 2016 (March 13, 2016), when Kevin Harvick beat Carl Edwards to the line by 0.010 seconds – which is tied with Atlanta (3/12/2000), Daytona (2/21/2016), and Rockingham (2/22/2004) for the ninth closest finish in series history.

 

1 – Number of miles Phoenix Raceway is in length.

 

1 – This is 23XI Racing’s and Tyler Reddick’s first time competing in the Championship 4 Round in the NASCAR Cup Series.

 

2 – Number of active drivers with multiple NASCAR Cup Series championships (Kyle Busch, 2015 and 2019; Joey Logano, 2018 and 2022).

 

2 – Number of 2024 Championship 4 Round drivers with a previous win at Phoenix Raceway – Joey Logano and William Byron.

 

4 – Number of NASCAR Cup Series Championship Races Phoenix Raceway has hosted (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023).

 

4 – The fewest laps led by the race winner in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was four of the scheduled 378 laps (1.05%) by Ryan Newman on April 10, 2010 – he started from the 14th position.

 

4 – In total four different manufacturers have won at Phoenix Raceway in the NASCAR Cup Series, led by Chevrolet with 27 victories and followed by Ford (19), Toyota (8) and Pontiac (2).

 

4 – Number of drivers that won their first career NASCAR Cup Series pole at Phoenix Raceway: Casey Atwood (October 2001), Denny Hamlin (November 2005), AJ Allmendinger (April 2010) and Alex Bowman (November 2016).

 

7 – Number of former NASCAR Cup Series champions entered in this year’s season finale race at Phoenix:

 

Active NASCAR Cup Series Drivers with Championships (1949 - 2023)

Rank

No. of Titles

Active Champions (7)

Years

1

2

Joey Logano

2022, 2018
 

2

Kyle Busch

2019, 2015

3

1

Ryan Blaney

2023
 

1

Kyle Larson

2021
 

1

Chase Elliott

2020
 

1

Martin Truex Jr.

2017
 

1

Brad Keselowski

2012

 

8 – Number of wins from the pole or first starting position at Phoenix Raceway – most recent was Joey Logano’s win in the Championship Race in 2022.

 

10 – Number of NASCAR Cup Series races at Phoenix Raceway that have ended with Overtime.

 

Date

Scheduled

Actual

Overtime

Winner

Runner-Up

Sunday, March 12, 2023

312

317

5

William Byron

Ryan Blaney

Sunday, March 8, 2020

312

316

4

Joey Logano

Kevin Harvick

Sunday, March 19, 2017

312

314

2

Ryan Newman

Kyle Larson

Sunday, November 13, 2016

312

324

12

Joey Logano

Kyle Busch

Sunday, March 13, 2016

312

313

1

Kevin Harvick

Carl Edwards

Sunday, March 3, 2013

312

316

4

Carl Edwards

Jimmie Johnson

Sunday, November 11, 2012

312

319

7

Kevin Harvick

Denny Hamlin

Saturday, April 10, 2010

375

378

3

Ryan Newman

Jeff Gordon

Sunday, November 9, 2008

312

313

1

Jimmie Johnson

Kurt Busch

Sunday, November 7, 2004

312

315

3

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Ryan Newman

 

10 – Number of former NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix race winners entered in this weekend’s season finale.

 

10 – Number of times the winner of the NASCAR Cup Series championship season finale race has won the title during the Playoff Era (2004-Present); including the last eight consecutive seasons in the elimination-style format of the Playoffs - Tony Stewart, 2011; Kevin Harvick, 2014; Kyle Busch, 2015; Jimmie Johnson, 2016; Martin Truex Jr., 2017; Joey Logano, 2018; Kyle Busch, 2019; Chase Elliott, 2020; Kyle Larson, 2021; and Joey Logano, 2022 – Note: All the wins listed were at Homestead-Miami Speedway except for Elliott’s in 2020, Larson’s in 2021 and Logano’s in 2022 which were at Phoenix Raceway.

 

11 – Number of former NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix pole winners entered in this weekend’s season finale.

 

12 – The most cautions in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway; has happened twice – most recently March 8, 2020.

 

14 – The number of different organization in the NASCAR Cup Series that have won at Phoenix Raceway, led by Hendrick Motorsports with 13 victories among nine drivers.

 

15 – The worst finish by the eventual series champion in the season finale race (at Homestead-Miami Speedway) - it has happened three times: Tony Stewart in 2005, Jimmie Johnson in 2008 and Brad Keselowski in 2012. 

 

15 – The highest number of lap leaders in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway (March 4, 2012). The Phoenix race earlier this season had six leaders.

 

20 – Total number of NASCAR Cup Series Playoff races held at Phoenix Raceway (2004-2023).

 

20 – The age of the youngest NASCAR Cup Series race winner at Phoenix Raceway: Kyle Busch (November 13, 2005 – 20 years, 6 months, 11 days).

 

23 – Number of starting positions on the grid that have led to NASCAR Cup Series wins at Phoenix Raceway.

 

27 – Number of different NASCAR Cup Series pole winners at Phoenix Raceway; led by Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman with four each.

 

28 – The greatest number of lead changes in a single race at Phoenix Raceway (Feb. 27, 2011). Earlier this season the NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix produced 10 lead changes.

 

29 – The lowest starting position by a race winner at Phoenix Raceway (Ricky Rudd, 1995).

 

31 – Number of different NASCAR Cup Series winners at Phoenix Raceway; led by Kevin Harvick with nine victories.

 

42 – Number of most NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix Raceway starts by a driver - Kevin Harvick.

 

50 – The age of the oldest NASCAR Cup Series race winner at Phoenix Raceway: Mark Martin (April 18, 2009 – 50 years, 3 months, 9 days).

 

56 – Total number of NASCAR Cup Series races held at Phoenix Raceway.

 

100 – Number of different drivers that have led at least one lap in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway.

 

264 – The most laps led by the race winner in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was 264 of the scheduled 312 laps (84.6%) by Kevin Harvick on November 9, 2014 – he started from the third position.

 

312 – Number of laps scheduled for this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway.

 

1,722 – The most laps led all-time by a driver (Kevin Harvick) in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway.

 

Clutch: Season Finale Title-Clinching Performances

Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway (Nov. 10 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will mark the conclusion of the 2024 season. Below is a look at how the last 14 NASCAR Cup Series season finales (2010-2023) have turned out:

 

2010 – Jimmie Johnson Tracks Down Denny Hamlin For Fifth Straight Title

Denny Hamlin held a comfortable 15-point lead on Jimmie Johnson for the championship heading into the season finale. However, Hamlin could not close out the title. Hamlin damaged his Toyota with an early-race spin and finished 14th as a result. Kevin Harvick, who was third in points entering the race, finished third. Johnson placed runner-up in the race to take home his fifth consecutive championship.

 

2011 – Tony Stewart Wins Third Championship In Epic Race

Trailing leader Carl Edwards by three points entering the 2011 season finale at Homestead-Miami, Tony Stewart virtually needed a win to capture the title – especially considering that Edwards ultimately finished runner-up in the race.

 

Stewart drove to the front from the back of the field twice and edged out Edwards to get to Victory Lane.

 

The pair finished the season tied in points, but Stewart held the tiebreaker over Edwards of most wins during the season (five to one). It was the first title for Stewart-Haas Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series.

 

2012 – Brad Keselowski Fends Off Jimmie Johnson For First Championship

Brad Keselowski entered the 2012 season finale 20 points ahead of second-place Jimmie Johnson in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff standings.

 

Keselowski, who won two Playoff races to help put himself in championship-clinching position, didn’t produce his best performance in the finale, with a 15th-place showing at Homestead-Miami.

 

But problems in the pits for Johnson caused the five-time champion to finish 36th and helped Keselowski secure his first championship, as well as the first title for Team Penske.

 

2013 – Jimmie Johnson Closes In On Earnhardt And Petty With Sixth Title

After building up his points lead on the strength of six wins, 16 top fives and 23 top 10s, Jimmie Johnson needed to finish 23rd or better to capture his sixth NASCAR Cup Series championship.

 

Following an incident on a restart just shy of the 200-lap mark, Johnson ended up 23rd when it all sorted itself out.

 

By the end of the race, he worked his way up to finish ninth, earning Hendrick Motorsports a record 11th championship.

 

2014 – Harvick Rides To Two ‘Do Or Die’ Victories To Earn First Series Title

Kevin Harvick started the penultimate race of the 2014 season needing a win to get into the Championship 4 race at Phoenix. He dominated the contest, leading 264 laps to earn the victory and a spot in the Championship 4.

 

After playing mind games throughout the week leading up to Homestead-Miami with the rest of the field, Harvick held off runner-up Ryan Newman to earn his first career NASCAR Cup Series title and the second for Stewart-Haas Racing.

 

Harvick’s championship was the first of the ‘elimination-style’ format in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. 

 

2015 – Kyle Busch Overcomes Injury For Improbable Comeback

Just ninth months after breaking his right leg and fracturing his left foot, Kyle Busch edged out defending champion Kevin Harvick for the Homestead race win and his first NASCAR Cup Series championship.

 

Busch missed the first 11 races of the season after sustaining his injuries in a crash in the season-opening NASCAR Xfinity race at Daytona. He came back to win five races in the NASCAR Cup Series that year and cement his name in NASCAR history.

 

2016 – Johnson Ties Series All-Time Record With Seventh Championship

The six-time champion, Jimmie Johnson, proved once again to not count him out in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

 

Johnson won his way into the Round of 8 with a victory at Charlotte, then took the checkered flag at Martinsville to punch his ticket to the Championship 4 Round at Homestead-Miami.

 

He then provided a walk-off win at Homestead-Miami to capture his seventh championship, tying NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for the NASCAR Cup Series record of most championships at seven each.

 

2017 – Martin Truex Jr. Earns First Championship With Underdog Team

Driving for the Denver-based Furniture Row Racing, Martin Truex Jr. turned a career-best season into a championship for the ages.

 

His victory in the Homestead-Miami finale was a personal best eighth on the year. He led the final 34 laps and held off a hard charging Kyle Busch by .681-seconds to earn the trophy hoist and his first title.

 

It was an emotional victory, team owner Barney Visser was recovering from a recent heart attack back in Denver and Truex’s then girlfriend Sherry Pollex was trackside after a year of major medical obstacles to help him celebrate.

 

2018 – Joey Logano Wins First Championship

After qualifying for the Championship 4 in the Round of 8 opening race at Martinsville Speedway, the 28-year old Logano headed to Homestead-Miami largely considered the “underdog” to 2018’s “Big 3” – Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick. The threesome (Busch, 9, Harvick, 8 and Truex, 4) won 21 of the first 35 races in 2018. However, the Team Penske driver grabbed his opportunity and took it to the Big 3, winning the season finale by a sizable 1.7-seconds over Truex, Harvick and Busch and taking his career first NASCAR Cup Series championship trophy – Team Penske’s second.

 

2019 – Kyle Busch grabs second title, fifth for JGR

After putting up four wins early in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, Kyle Busch went winless for 21 races. He pointed his way into the Championship 4 but when his back was against the wall he answered and won the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway passing Kevin Harvick in the closing laps and then holding off his hard charging Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. by 4.578-seconds to win his second championship of his career (2015, 2019).

 

With the feat, Busch became just the second active multiple champion joining Jimmie Johnson (seven titles) at the time. The title was also the fifth for Joe Gibbs Racing - Bobby Labonte (2000), Tony Stewart (2002 and 2005) and Kyle Busch (2015 and 2019).

 

2020 – Chase Elliott comes from the rear to win first title at Phoenix

After putting up just two wins during the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series regular season, Chase Elliott stepped up his game in the Playoffs winning at the Charlotte Road Course to advance to the Round of 8 and then winning the penultimate race at Martinsville Speedway to earn his spot in the Championship 4 Round. Elliott and the No. 9 team would head to Phoenix for the season finale only to lose their first starting position to multiple pre-race inspection failures. But the setback didn’t hold Elliott down, instead it made him even more hungry for the title.

 

During the Championship race, he methodically worked his way through the field taking the lead for the first time in the event on Lap 79 of 312. Elliott would go on to hold off a hard charging Brad Keselowski to win the race by 2.740-seconds. With the feat, Elliott became seventh active champion at the time. The title was also a series leading 13th for Hendrick Motorsports.

 

2021 – Dirt Master Kyle Larson dominates Phoenix to win first Cup championship

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson was dominant all season long putting up five wins and winning the Regular Season Championship in 2021. The California native entered the Playoffs as the No. 1 seed with 52 Playoffs points. Larson would then proceed to tie Tony Stewart’s Playoff record for the most wins in a single NASCAR Cup Series postseason run with five victories, including the season finale race at Phoenix Raceway.

 

Larson showed up to the Valley of the Sun as the odds favorite and he didn’t disappoint. Larson won the pole and then led a race-high 107 laps en route to the win and his first NASCAR Cup Series title. With the feat, Larson became eighth active champion at the time (prior to Kurt Busch stepping away from fulltime racing). The title was also a series leading 14th for Hendrick Motorsports.

 

2022 – Joey Logano secures second Cup title with stout Phoenix win

Team Penske’s Joey Logano earned his spot in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs’ Championship 4 Round after winning the Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

 

After two weeks of preparation for the Championship Race at Phoenix, crew chief Paul Wolfe and the No. 22 Ford team brought a rocket ship for Logano to race in the finale. Logano would win the pole for the event and lead 187 of the 312 laps en route to his victory and second career Cup Series title (2018, 2022). Logano became just the second active driver with multiple championships in the series joining Kyle Busch (2015, 2019).

 

2023 – Ryan Blaney wins first title at Phoenix

After putting up just one wins during the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series regular season, Ryan Blaney smashed the gas pedal in the Playoffs winning at Talladega to advance to the Round of 8 and then winning the penultimate race at Martinsville Speedway to earn his spot in the Championship 4 Round.

 

With a wave of momentum behind their backs, Ryan Blaney and No. 12 Team Penske team showed up to Phoenix Raceway eager to win a championship. Blaney would qualify 15th for the Championship Race and the second generation driver raced his way up to a runner-up finish – the highest finishing driver of the Championship 4 – to earn his first NASCAR Cup Series championship.

 

Saying Goodbye: Stewart-Haas Racing’s last race

Stewart-Haas Racing drivers will be making their final starts for the organization this weekend at Phoenix Raceway. The company has announced earlier this year it will be closing down at the conclusion of the 2024 season.

 

Since joining the NASCAR Cup Series in 2009, Stewart-Haas Racing has been a force to be reckoned with amongst its competitors.

 

Stewart-Haas Racing has fielded 20 different drivers since 2009, producing two NASCAR Cup Series Championships (Tony Stewart, 2011 and Kevin Harvick, 2014), 70 wins, 343 top fives, 707 top 10s and 62 poles.

 

All is not lost though, from the ashes of Stewart-Haas Racing will be the newly formed Haas Factory Team which plans to run two NASCAR Xfinity Series cars and a NASCAR Cup Series car in 2025.

 

Busch’s consecutive year win streak is in jeopardy, one last chance this weekend

The longest streak of consecutive years with a win in the NASCAR Cup Series could be coming to a close this weekend at Phoenix Raceway if Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch doesn’t pull off the victory. Busch currently is riding a wins streak that is 19 consecutive years – from 2005 – 2023.

 

Busch leads all active drivers in wins in the NASCAR Cup Series with 63 victories.

 

Busch has made 38 starts at Phoenix Raceway posting four poles, three wins, 12 top fives and 26 top 10s.

 

NASCAR Cup Series, Etc.

 

Michael Phelps named Honorary Pace Car Driver for NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race – Phoenix Raceway has announced that Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, will serve as the Honorary Pace Car Driver for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race on Sunday, Nov. 10.

 

“Michael Phelps is the prime standard for success and achievement across all of sports,” said Phoenix Raceway President Latasha Causey. “We’re incredibly grateful to have such an accomplished icon join us for the most important race of the season as we crown our next Cup Series champion at Phoenix Raceway.”

 

Considered by many to be the greatest Olympian ever, the Baltimore, Md., native was a swimming prodigy who amassed a record 28 total Olympic medals and 23 gold medals during his career. At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest man to compete for Team USA in the Olympics at the 2000 Games in Sydney. He dominated his next four Olympic Games, leaving each as the most decorated athlete that competed. Phelps took home six gold medals and two bronzes in Athens in 2004, and followed that tally with the greatest haul of medals in Olympic history at Beijing in 2008 winning gold in all eight events event he entered.

 

His final Olympic outings were equally impressive. Phelps won four golds and two silvers at London in 2012, and after previously announcing his retirement, came back for the 2016 games in Rio and garnered five golds and one silver to cap off his astounding career.

Phelps now enjoys retirement in Paradise Valley, Arizona. He also continues his work leading the Michael Phelps Foundation in its mission to provide families with the tools and support to be more confident and comfortable in the water and in life.

 

Whitney Cummings Named Honorary Starter for NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race – Phoenix Raceway has announced that comedian, actor, writer, producer, director, podcaster, and entrepreneur Whitney Cummings will be the Honorary Starter for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race on Sunday, Nov. 10.

 

“What’s more exhilarating than watching a NASCAR race up close and personal? I am psyched to be the Honorary Starter for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race in Phoenix,” said Whitney Cummings. “I find it endearing that they designed their checkered flag specifically to match my past.”

 

“We’re elated to have Whitney Cummings join us for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race,” said Phoenix Raceway President Latasha Causey. “Her lively personality will surely help excite our sold-out crowd before we crown our 2024 champion.”

 

The multi-talented entertainer has cemented herself as one of the most renowned comedic voices of the last two decades. She is best known for creating, producing, and starring in the NBC series "Whitney” while simultaneously serving as the co-creator and co-writer of the syndicated Emmy-nominated CBS comedy series, “2 Broke Girls”. Cummings has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including “Workaholics,” “Crashing,” “Accused,” and notable Comedy Central Roasts. In celebration of the 30th anniversary of NBC’s hit sitcom “Friends,” Cummings will host a four-part game show on Max titled “Fast Friends.” She has also released six stand-up specials, including her latest, “Mouthy,” in November 2023.

 

Additionally, Cummings is the host, executive producer, and creator of the hit podcast, “Good for You,” which features conversations with friends, fellow comedians, and experts in various fields. In 2017, she published her memoir, “I’m Fine ... And Other Lies,” a humorous and candid collection of stories too embarrassing to share on stage. The same year, Cummings made her directorial debut with the feature adaptation of Louann Brizendine’s bestseller, “The Female Brain,” which she co-wrote alongside Neil Brennan. 

 

Sunoco Rookie of the Year Update – Spire Motorsport’s Carson Hocevar has mathematically clinched the 2024 Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors but will not be officially awarded until he finishes the season in good standing, per the program guidelines and eligibility.

 

NCS Sunoco Rookie of the Year Standings

Rookies

Points

Awards

Carson Hocevar

667

14

Josh Berry

566

10

Zane Smith

504

10

Kaz Grala

203

1

 

This season, Hocevar, working with crew chief Luke Lambert, has made 35 starts collecting one top five and six top 10s. His average starting position in 2024 is 20.2 and his average finish is 18.3. He has led 16 laps and has won 14 Sunoco Rookie of the Race Awards.

 

Cup Manufacturers Championship – Chevrolet has clinched the NASCAR Cup Series Manufacturers Championship this season. The manufacturer mathematically clinched the title following the race at Martinsville Speedway. Chevrolet currently has 15 wins on the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.

 

NCS Manufacturers Championship Standings

OEMs

Wins

Points

Chevrolet

15

1,275

Ford

11

1,235

Toyota

9

1,227

 

Nine different manufacturers have won the NASCAR Cup Series Manufacturers Championship. This is Chevrolet’s series leading 43rd NASCAR Cup Series Manufacturers Championship.

 

NCS Manufacturer Champions

OEM

No. of Manufacturers Championships

Most Recent

Chevrolet

43

2024

Ford

17

2020

Toyota

3

2019

Hudson

3

1954

Buick

2

1982

Dodge

2

1975

Oldsmobile

1

1955

Plymouth

1

1971

Pontiac

1

1962

 

Crew Member Spotlight: Phoenix Raceway – This weekend at Phoenix Raceway we wanted to highlight several of the team’s crew members that are from the surrounding areas of the track in Arizona.

 

ARIZONA

 

 

 

 

CREW MEMBER

ORGANIZATION

TEAM

ROLE

HOMETOWN

Mike Madill

Trackhouse Racing

1

Mechanic

Glendale, AZ

Nick Covey

Richard Childress Racing

3

Jackman

Glendale, AZ

John Gianninoto

Hendrick Motorsports

9

Fueler

Tucson, AZ

Kellen Mills

Legacy Motor Club

43

Jackman

Mesa AZ

 

NASCAR Cup Series milestones to watch for this season – Below is a look at some of the anticipated NASCAR Cup Series milestones to watch for this season.

 

Driver Starts (300 or more)

Kyle Busch leads all active drivers in career starts with 713 starts, followed by Martin Truex Jr. (692), Denny Hamlin (685), Joey Logano (578), Brad Keselowski (556), Michael McDowell (500), A.J. Allmendinger (447), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (435), Austin Dillon (407), Kyle Larson (365), Ryan Blaney (341), Chris Buescher (328), Alex Bowman (324) and Chase Elliott (321).

 

Driver Wins (10 or more)

Kyle Busch leads all active drivers in career wins with 63 victories, followed by Denny Hamlin (54), Brad Keselowski (36), Joey Logano (35), Martin Truex Jr. (34), Kyle Larson (29), Chase Elliott (19), William Byron (13) and Ryan Blaney (13).

 

  • Denny Hamlin currently has 54 NASCAR Cup Series wins, if he were to win another race, he would tie NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace for 11th on the all-time wins list with 55 victories each.

 

  • Brad Keselowski currently has 36 NASCAR Cup Series wins, if he were to win another race, he would tie Bobby Isaac for 23rd on the all-time wins list with 37 victories each.

 

Driver Poles (10 or more)

Denny Hamlin leads all active drivers in career poles with 44 poles, followed by Kyle Busch (34), Joey Logano (31), Martin Truex Jr. (23), Kyle Larson (21), Brad Keselowski (18), William Byron (13), Christopher Bell (13), Chase Elliott (12), and Ryan Blaney (10).

 

  • Denny Hamlin currently has 44 NASCAR Cup Series poles, if he were to win another pole, he would tie NASCAR Hall of Famer Buck Baker for 12th on the all-time pole winners list with 45 poles each.

 

  • Kyle Busch currently has 34 NASCAR Cup Series poles, if he were to win another pole, he would tie NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett for 21st on the all-time pole winners list with 35 poles each.

 

  • Joey Logano currently has 31 NASCAR Cup Series poles (tied with Kevin Harvick), if he were to win another pole, he would tie NASCAR Hall of Famers Fireball Roberts and Fred Lorenzen for 24th on the all-time pole winners list with 32 poles each.

 

Active Organization Wins

Hendrick Motorsports leads all active NASCAR Cup Series organizations in wins with 312, followed by Joe Gibbs Racing (214), Team Penske (146), RFK Racing (143), Richard Childress Racing (117), Wood Brothers Racing (100), Stewart-Haas Racing (70), 23XI Racing (8), Trackhouse Racing (8), Front Row Motorsports (4), JTG Daugherty Racing (3), Kaulig Racing (2), Spire Motorsports (1).

 

Manufacturer Wins

In total 16 different manufacturers have won in the NASCAR Cup Series, led by Chevrolet with 865 victories, and followed by Ford (734), Dodge (213), Toyota (189), Plymouth (189), Pontiac (154), Oldsmobile (96), Mercury (93), Buick (65), Hudson (58), Chrysler (54), American Motor Company (5), Lincoln (3), Studebaker (2), Jaguar (1) and Nash Motor Company (1).

 

NASCAR Xfinity Series

 

Xfinity Championship 4 contenders are locked-in, time to decide a champion

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is here – Championship Weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

 

The NASCAR Xfinity Series wrapped up the Round of 8 last weekend at Martinsville Speedway and will now head to Phoenix Raceway to crown a new NASCAR Xfinity Series champion. Four drivers – Austin Hill, A.J. Allmendinger, Cole Custer and Justin Allgaier – will vie for the title on Saturday, November 9 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).

 

Phoenix Raceway has hosted 45 NACAR Xfinity Series races, producing 26 different race winners and 24 different pole winners. Eleven races have been won from the pole or first starting position, most recently by Ty Gibbs in the 2022 Xfinity Series Championship Race.

 

NASCAR Cup Series regular Kyle Busch has made a name for himself at Phoenix Raceway in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, holding the record for most wins (11), poles (10), top 10s (21), lead lap finishes (24), laps led (2,237), and is tied with Kevin Harvick for most top fives (17).

 

The race at Phoenix Raceway will be sure to keep fans on their toes as there are two Champ 4 contenders who have taken the checkered flag at Phoenix Raceway previously – Justin Allgaier (2017, 2019), and Cole Custer (2023). Non-playoff contenders Brandon Jones (2020), Sammy Smith (2023), and Chandler Smith (2024) have also found Victory Lane at the one-mile Phoenix track.\

 

This season marks the fifth time that Phoenix Raceway plays host to the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race (2020-2024). From 2016 to 2019, the season finale was held at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

 

Since the inception of the Playoffs in 2016, seven of the eight championship races have been won by a Championship 4 Round driver – Daniel Suárez (2016), Tyler Reddick (2018, 2019), Austin Cindric (2020), Daniel Hemric (2021), Ty Gibbs (2022) and Cole Custer (2023). The lone exception is the 2017 Homestead-Miami Championship Race, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer won the event, and was a non-Playoff driver. Cole had made the Playoffs that season but was eliminated in the Round of 8.

 

NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race Winners (2016-2023)

Track

Date

Race No.

Race Winner

Crew Chief

Organization

Homestead

11/19/2016

33

Daniel Suarez

Scott Graves

Joe Gibbs Racing

Homestead

11/18/2017

33

Cole Custer

Jeff Meendering

Stewart-Haas Racing

Homestead

11/17/2018

33

Tyler Reddick

David Elenz

JR Motorsports

Homestead

11/16/2019

33

Tyler Reddick

Randall Burnett

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/7/2020

33

Austin Cindric

Brian Wilson

Team Penske

Phoenix

11/6/2021

33

Daniel Hemric

Dave Rogers

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/5/2022

33

Ty Gibbs

Chris Gayle

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/4/2023

33

Cole Custer

Jonathan Toney

Stewart-Haas Racing

 

Drivers will hit the track for their final practice session of the season on Friday, November 8 at 5:05 p.m. ET. You can catch the broadcast on the USA Network and the NBC Sports App. Their qualifying session will be on race day (Saturday, November 9) at 4 p.m. ET also on the USA Network and on the NBC Sports App.

 

Meet the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship 4 contenders

It’s been a wild ride for the NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers this season and now it’s time to crown a new champion. The four drivers who will be putting it all on the line this weekend are Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill, Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer and JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier.

 

Let’s take a look into these drivers’ careers and what brought them all the way to the Championship 4 Round this season.

 

Austin Hill (No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet)

The 33-year-old Austin Hill had had a strong season, posting four wins (Daytona, Atlanta 1, Atlanta 2, Homestead), 11 top fives, 19 top 10s, and led 240 laps

 

Playoff recap: Hill kicked off the 2024 Playoffs with a seventh-place finish at Kansas, a 23rd-place finish at Talladega and a fourth-place finish at the Charlotte Roval, enough to boost him into the Round of 8. He kicked off the second round with a 10th-place finish at Las Vegas, won at Homestead, and finished P14 at Martinsville.

 

The 2024 season marks his third Playoff appearance and his first in the Championship 4 Round. In 2022 and 2023, he made it to the Round of 8 before being eliminated.

 

Phoenix Raceway stats: The Winston, Georgia native has had some strong finishes at Phoenix Raceway, posting one top five and four top 10s in five starts.

 

Crew Chief Corner – Andy Street: The 2024 season marks Street’s third full-time season with Hill. He also had a fulltime Xfinity Series season with Myatt Snider in 2021 and had various starts with multiple Xfinity Series drivers in 2019 and 2020.

 

Championship Outlook: Richard Childress Racing has won five NASCAR Xfinity Series driver championships (2019, '13, '08, '06, '01) – tied with RFK Racing for the most all-time. RCR has also won five NASCAR Xfinity Series owner championships (2019, '07, '06, '03, '01) - second-most all-time. Austin Hill and Andy Street are looking to win their first NASCAR Xfinity Series championships this weekend.  

 

A.J. Allmendinger (No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet)

The 42-year-old A.J. Allmendinger posted one win (Las Vegas 2), seven top fives, 17 top 10s and led 258 laps to secure his spot in the 2024 Championship Race.

 

Playoff recap: Allmendinger didn’t have the strongest start to the 2024 Playoffs, posting a 17th-place finish Kansas and an 11th-place finish at Talladega before posting a near-win at the Charlotte Roval (runner-up). He hit the Round of 8 with a bang, posting his first win of the season at Las Vegas and a 10th-place at Homestead before crashing at Martinsville, leaving him with a 38th-place finish.

 

The 2024 season marks Allmendinger’s third Playoff appearance and his second in the Championship 4 Round (2021 and 2024). His other Playoff appearance was in 2022, where he was eliminated in the Round of 8.

 

Phoenix Raceway stats: The Los Gatos, California native has made seven starts at Phoenix’s one-mile track, posting two top fives and three top 10s.

 

Crew Chief Corner – Alex Yontz: The 2024 season marks Yontz’s first full-time season with Allmendinger. He started in the Xfinity Series in 2019 running select races with multiple drivers. In 2020 and 2021, he ran fulltime seasons with Justin Haley.

 

Championship Outlook: Kaulig Racing is looking to win the organization’s first NASCAR Xfinity Series championship this weekend. AJ Allmendinger and Andy Yontz are looking to win their first NASCAR Xfinity Series championships this weekend as well.  

 

Cole Custer (No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford)

Back to defend his 2023 title, 26-year-old, Cole Custer had a strong season racking up two wins (Pocono, Bristol), 14 top fives, 22 top 10s, and led 772 laps.

 

Playoff recap: Custer had a strong start in the Round of 12, posting a runner-up finish in Kansas, followed by a 26th-place finish in Talladega and a 13th-place finish on the Charlotte Road Course. He then went on to the Round of 8, finishing eighth in Las Vegas, second at Homestead, and fourth at Martinsville.

 

The 2024 season marks his fifth Playoff appearance. His first was in 2017 where he made it the Round of 8 and ultimately finished the season fifth in the final standings. He is no stranger to competing in the Championship 4, making it to the final round consecutive years (2018, 2019) where he finished runner-up in both and then again last season (2023) where he finally managed to take home the title.

 

Phoenix Raceway stats: The Ladera Ranch, California native has been strong at Phoenix Raceway, posting one win (2023), four top fives and seven top 10s in his 10 starts.

 

Crew Chief Corner – Jonathan Toney: Toney is two-for-two as Custer’s crew chief. He started in the series last season, taking Custer and the No. 00 team all the way to the championship and did it again this season.

 

Championship Outlook: Stewart-Haas Racing has won one NASCAR Xfinity Series driver championship (2023) and two owner championships (2023, '18). If Cole Custer wins the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship this weekend, he will become the 10th different driver to win multiple titles in the series. If Jonathan Toney wins the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship this weekend, he will become the 11th different crew chief to win multiple titles in the series.     

 

Justin Allgaier (No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet)

The 38-year-old Justin Allgaier is the most seasoned driver in the Champ 4 field and will, without a doubt, leave it all out on the track to snag his first Xfinity Series title. He’s had a successful season, posting two wins (Darlington 1, Michigan), nine top fives, 19 top 10s and has led 705 laps.

 

Playoff recap: Allgaier didn’t have the strongest start to the 2024 Playoffs, finishing 36th at Kansas (crash). He went on to post a 25th-place finish at Talladega and a seventh-place finish at the Charlotte Roval. He had a good start to the Round of 8 with a third-place finish at Las Vegas, an eighth-place finish at Homestead then finished with a fifth-place finish at Martinsville.

 

The 2024 season marks his ninth Playoff appearance. He is the only driver to compete in all Xfinity Series Playoffs (2016-2024). Additionally, he has appeared in the Championship 4 Round a series-leading seven times (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024).

 

Phoenix Raceway stats: The Spaulding, Illinois is a veteran on Phoenix’s one-mile track, posing two wins (2017, 2019), 10 top fives and 18 top 10s in his 28 starts.

 

Crew Chief Corner – James Pohlman: The 2024 season marks Pohlman’s second full-time season with Allgaier. He had his first stint in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2011 with Juan Pablo Montoya where they managed to post two top 10s in their 17 races together. He also ran one-off races with Ross Chastain in 2020 and with Austin Dillon and Austin Hill in 2022. He dipped his toe in the Xfinity Series in 2022 with Sheldon Creed (four races – one top 10).

 

Championship Outlook: JR Motorsports has won three NASCAR Xfinity Series driver championships (2018, '17, '14) – tied with BACE Motorsports for fourth on the all-time driver championship wins list. Justin Allgaier and James Pohlman are looking to win their first NASCAR Xfinity Series championships this weekend.  

 

NASCAR Xfinity Series, Etc.

 

NASCAR Xfinity Series manufacturer standings – With the season coming to a close this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, Chevrolet has clinched the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series Manufacturers Championship with 18 wins and 1,193 points.

 

NXS Manufacturers Championship Standings

OEMs

Wins

Points

Chevrolet

18

1,193

Toyota

11

1,138

Ford

3

1,032

 

Xfinity Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings – After a fun 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season that saw two of the four rookies find Victory Lane this season, it’s Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love who heads into the final race of the season atop the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings. Love has mathematically clinched the 2024 Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors but will not be officially awarded until he finishes the season in good standing, per the program guidelines and eligibility.

 

NXS Sunoco Rookie of the Year Standings

Rookies

Points

Awards

Jesse Love

2,208

17

Shane van Gisbergen

2,132

11

Leland Honeyman

451

3

Hailie Deegan

174

1

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series

 

The Stage Is Set: The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series will crown a new champion in Phoenix

The competitors are gearing up for the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway this Friday, November 8 at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM Radio (Channel 90), where it will decide who of the Championship 4 contenders – Grant Enfinger, Christian Eckes, Ty Majeski, and Corey Heim – will finish the highest and take the 2024 title.

 

The half-mile track has hosted 33 CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races since its inaugural Phoenix race – a race won by Mike Skinner piloting the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on February 5, 1995. Skinner bested legendary drivers Terry Labonte, Ron Hornaday Jr., and Johnny Benson Jr.

 

Notably, there have been 23 different race winners. Kevin Harvick leads the series with four wins at Phoenix. Eight races have been won from the pole or first starting position, most recently by Zane Smith in 2022.

 

Here’s a closer look at the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series veterans who have etched their name in the Phoenix Raceway record books:

 

  • Race record: Kevin Harvick 108.014 mph (11/08/2002)
  • Qualifying record: William Byron 138.254 mph (11/11/2016)
  • Most races: Matt Crafton (23)
  • Most poles: Jack Sprague (5)
  • Most wins: Kevin Harvick (4)
  • Most top fives: Ron Hornaday Jr. (10)
  • Most top 10s: Ron Hornaday Jr. and Jack Sprague (13)
  • Laps led: Jack Sprague (737)

 

Since the inception of the Playoff format in 2016, only three of the seven winners in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race have also claimed the championship that season – Brett Moffitt (2018), Sheldon Creed (2020), and Zane Smith (2022).

 

NCTS Championship Race Winners (2016-2023)

Date

Track

Race Winner

Season

Race No.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Homestead

William Byron

2016

23

Friday, November 17, 2017

Homestead

Chase Briscoe

2017

23

Friday, November 16, 2018

Homestead

Brett Moffitt

2018

23

Friday, November 15, 2019

Homestead

Austin Hill

2019

23

Friday, November 6, 2020

Phoenix

Sheldon Creed

2020

23

Friday, November 5, 2021

Phoenix

Chandler Smith

2021

22

Friday, November 4, 2022

Phoenix

Zane Smith

2022

23

Friday, November 3, 2023

Phoenix

Christian Eckes

2023

23

 

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series will kick off the Championship Weekend with practice on Thursday, November 7 at 8 p.m. ET. They will make their qualifying runs on Friday, November 8 at 4 p.m. ET on FS2.

 

Scouting the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship 4 contenders

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series concluded the Round of 8 at Martinsville Speedway last weekend, locking in the four drivers who will be competing to be crowned the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series champion.

 

Christian Eckes won the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200 last weekend at Martinsville – his fourth victory of the 2024 season – and punched his ticket to the Championship 4 with the victory.

 

As for the other three drivers, Grant Enfinger clinched his spot after winning at both Talladega and Homestead and Corey Heim pointed his way in (53 points above the cutoff) after a seventh-place finish at Martinsville. Ty Majeski also pointed his way in (28 points above the cutline), finishing 11th at the 0.526-mile track.

 

The journey to the Championship 4 was not easy. Let’s look at how the four championship drivers have done in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series careers to get them to this point.

 

Grant Enfinger (No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet) heads to Phoenix Raceway ready to make his third career appearance in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship 4 Round. The 39-year-old’s first year with his new team has gone without a significant hitch.

 

2024 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Season Stats:

  • Two wins (Talladega, Martinsville)
  • Seven top five finishes and 12 top 10 finishes
  • 263 laps led
  • Average start – 11.7
  • Average finish – 10.8

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Career (2018 – Present):

  • 195 starts, 12 wins, 65 top five finishes, 114 top 10 finishes, six poles
  • 1,394 laps led
  • Average start – 10.5
  • Average finish – 10.4

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff Stats (2018-2024):

  • Six Playoff wins (Las Vegas, 2018; Martinsville, 2020; Indianapolis, 2022; Milwaukee, 2023; Talladega, Homestead-Miami, 2024)
  • 41 starts, 17 top five finishes, 25 top 10 finishes, three poles
  • 412 laps led

 

Crew Chief Jeff Stankiewicz:

Jeff Stankiewicz has crew chief experience dating back to 2010 and has made his mark in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. He spent five years in the Xfinity Series compiling 11 top-five finishes and 28 top-10 finishes in 85 races. Some notable names he has worked with in the series are Ben Kennedy (2017) and Sheldon Creed (2022-2023).

 

In 2011, he began his journey in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series becoming crew chief for Parker Kligerman. Since then, he has accumulated 12 wins, 43 top-five, and 81 top-10 finishes, in 202 races. Other notable names he has teamed up with are Brad Keselowski (2012), Kyle Larson (2016), Chase Elliott (2017) and Sheldon Creed (2020-2021).

 

Christian Eckes (No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet) heads to Phoenix Raceway to make his first career appearance in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship 4 Round. The 2024 season marks the fourth time the 23-year-old has made the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoffs.

 

2024 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Season Stats:

  • Four wins (Bristol, Martinsville-1, Nashville, Martinsville-2)
  • 14 top five finishes and 21 top 10 finishes
  • 1,050 laps led
  • Average start – 6.9
  • Average finish – 5.5

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Career (2018 – Present):

  • 113 starts, nine wins, 44 top five finishes, 72 top 10 finishes, nine poles
  • 1,821 laps led
  • Average start – 8.3
  • Average finish – 10.4

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff Stats (2020 – Present):

  • Three Playoff wins (Kansas, Phoenix, 2023; Martinsville, 2024)
  • 27 starts, 12 top five finishes, 20 top 10 finishes, three poles
  • 536 laps led

 

Crew Chief Charles Denike:

Charles Denike has five years of knowledgeable experience in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. In 111 races, he’s accumulated 10 wins, 34 top fives, 56 top 10s, eight poles, and his drivers have led 1,594 laps. Denike has spent the last two season with Christian Eckes and has bolstered the No. 19 team’s performance tremendously.

 

Notable names Denike has also teamed up with in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series are Greg Biffle (2020), Chase Elliott (2020), Justin Haley. (2020), Sam Mayer (2020), Tyler Ankrum (2021), and Championship 4 contender Grant Enfinger (2022).

 

Ty Majeski (No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford) heads to Phoenix Raceway to compete in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship 4 Round for the second time in his career. With steady performances week-in and week-out, the 38-year-old hopes to earn ThorSport Racing a championship.

 

2024 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Season Stats:

  • Two wins (Indianapolis, Richmond)
  • 9 top five finishes and 13 top- 10 finishes, 5 poles
  • 468 laps led
  • Average start – 5.0
  • Average finish – 11.1

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Career (2019 – Present):

  • 88 starts, 5 wins, 27 top five finishes, 47 top 10 finishes, 10 poles
  • 1,258 laps led
  • Average start – 8.3
  • Average finish – 12.4

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff Stats (2022 – Present):

  • Three Playoff wins (Bristol, Homestead-Miami, 2022; Indianapolis, 2023)
  • 20 starts, six top five finishes, 11 top 10 finishes, three poles
  • 595 laps led

 

Crew Chief Joe Shear Jr.:

Joe Shear Jr. has experience in all three NASCAR national series. His NASCAR journey first began in 1995 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Robbie Reiser. He spent six years with several different drivers in the series compiling one win, two top-five, and 13 top-10 finishes in 97 races.

 

Since then, Shear Jr. has been with the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series for 20 years, accumulating one championship (2016), 29 wins, 125 top five finishes, 200 top 10 finishes, and 21 poles. He spent most of his time in the series with 2016 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series champion Johnny Sauter before joining Ty Majeski and ThorSport Racing.

 

Corey Heim (No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota) returns to Phoenix Raceway after finishing third in the Championship 4 Round last year. The 22-year-old is in his second consecutive Playoff appearance.

 

2024 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Season Stats:

  • Six wins (COTA, Kansas-1, North Wilkesboro, Gateway, Pocono, Kansas-2)
  • 13 top five finishes, 17 top 10 finishes, 1 pole
  • 666 laps led
  • Average start – 10.1
  • Average finish – 7.4

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Career (2021 – Present):

  • 63 starts, 11 wins, 31 top five finishes, 46 top 10 finishes, 7 poles
  • 1,348 laps led
  • Average start – 8.8
  • Average finish – 9.3

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff Stats (2023 – Present):

  • Two Playoff wins (Bristol, 2023; Kansas, 2024)
  • 13 starts, eight top five finishes, 11 top 10 finishes, two poles
  • 400 laps led

 

Crew Chief Scott Zipadelli:

Scott Zipadelli has crew chief experience dating back to 2000 and has made his mark in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. He spent 10 years in the Xfinity Series compiling three wins, 35 top five finishes, and 91 top 10 finishes in 272 races. Some notable names he has worked with in the series are Kenny Wallace (2011, 2012), Justin Allgaier (2013), and Kyle Larson (2014).

 

In 2015, he made his move to the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series becoming crew chief for Ben Kennedy. Since then, he has accumulated 18 wins, 68 top-five, 117 top-10 finishes, and nine poles in 204 races. Other notable names he has teamed up with are Ryan Truex (2017), Brett Moffitt (2018), Austin Hill (2019-2021), and Tyler Ankrum (2023).

 

Time to Name a Champion: Playoffs Contender’s Career Performances at Phoenix

It’s the moment the Playoff contenders have been waiting for: Championship Weekend. As the competitors head to Phoenix this weekend, the pressure to win and hoist the coveted championship trophy is on.

 

All drivers in the Championship 4 have given Phoenix Raceway a go in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series, making this weekend that much more intense. Here’s a look at how our contenders have performed there previously.

 

Rank

Driver

Races

Poles

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

DNFs

Average Finish

1

Grant Enfinger

7

1

0

2

4

1

10.1

2

Christian Eckes

5

0

1

2

4

0

10.0

3

Ty Majeski

3

0

0

0

0

0

15.0

4

Corey Heim

2

1

0

0

1

0

12.5

 

Of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff field, Christian Eckes is the only previous winner at Phoenix Raceway.

 

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series, Etc.

 

2024 CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Manufacturers Championship breakdown – Following 22 races, Chevrolet has mathematically clinched the 2024 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Manufacturers Championship with 12 wins and 825 points on the season.

 

NCTS Manufacturers Championship Standings

OEMs

Wins

Points

Chevrolet

12

825

Toyota

6

769

Ford

4

740

  

CRAFTSMAN Truck Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings – Through 22 races, Front Row Motorsports Layne Riggs has mathematically clinched the 2024 Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors but will not be officially awarded until he finishes the season in good standing, per the program guidelines and eligibility.

 

NCTS Sunoco Rookie of the Year

Rookies

Points

Awards

Layne Riggs

557

15

Connor Jones

169

4

Thadd Moffitt

128

3

 

Statistical Advance: Analyzing the Championship Race

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (November 5, 2024) – Below is a look at the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Championship 4 contenders at Phoenix Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona leading into the Championship Race on November 10 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90). 

 

2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Standings Outlook

Following Martinsville Speedway – November 3, 2024

Round of 8 - Race No. 9 of 10

Rank

Driver

Vehicle

Points

Race Wins

Stage Wins

+/- Cutoff

1

Ryan Blaney

12

5,000

3

4

Advanced To The Championship 4 Round

2

Joey Logano

22

5,000

3

2

3

Tyler Reddick

45

5,000

3

6

4

William Byron

24

5,000

3

2

5

Christopher Bell

20

2,363

3

11

Eliminated From The Playoffs

6

Kyle Larson

5

2,339

6

12

7

Chase Elliott

9

2,304

1

2

8

Alex Bowman

48

2,295

1

1

9

Denny Hamlin

11

2,293

3

7

10

Martin Truex Jr.

19

2,226

0

4

11

Austin Cindric

2

2,222

1

4

12

Daniel Suarez

99

2,199

1

1

13

Brad Keselowski

6

2,186

1

1

14

Chase Briscoe

14

2,176

1

0

15

Ty Gibbs

54

2,168

0

2

16

Harrison Burton

21

2,101

1

0

 

PHOENIX-SPECIFIC STATISTICS

*Playoff drivers are seeded by best finishes from the Playoffs Round of 8; Loop Data from 2005-2024.

 

1 - Ryan Blaney (No. 12 Team Penske Ford)

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 89.3, seventh-best

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, 11 top fives, 17 top 10s, one pole

·       Led 555 laps

·       Average Finish of 15.6

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       Eight top fives, 12 top 10s, three poles

·       Average Finish of 10.941, third-best

·       Average Running Position of 9.477, second-best

·       Driver Rating of 99.2, fourth-best

·       4,468 Laps in the Top 15 (83.9%), series-most

 

 

2 - Joey Logano (No. 22 Team Penske Ford)

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 84.2, ninth-best

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, six top fives, 12 top 10s, three poles

·       Led 307 laps

·       Average Finish of 17.6

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       Three wins, eight top fives, 16 top 10s, two poles

·       Average Finish of 13.484, eighth-best

·       Average Running Position of 11.817, eighth-best

·       Driver Rating of 93.4, eighth-best

·       6,770 Laps in the Top 15 (69.9%), eighth-most

 

 

3 - Tyler Reddick (No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota)

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 90.0, sixth-best

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, 12 top fives, 20 top 10s, three poles

·       Led 597 laps

·       Average Finish of 13.4

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       Two top fives, three top 10s

·       Average Finish of 17.889, 17th-best

·       Average Running Position of 13.126, 10th-best

·       Driver Rating of 82.3, 13th-best

·       1,754 Laps in the Top 15 (62.3%), 11th-most

 

 

 

4 - William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet)

·       Season-to-Date Driver Rating: 91.8, fifth-best

2024 Rundown

·       Three wins, 12 top fives, 20 top 10s, one pole

·       Led 338 laps

·       Average Finish of 13.2

Phoenix Raceway Outlook:

·       One win, two top fives, seven top 10s, one pole

·       Average Finish of 11.769, sixth-best

·       Average Running Position of 10.015, fourth-best

·       Driver Rating of 93.6, seventh-best

·       3,222 Laps in the Top 15 (79.3%), third-most

 

 

 

NASCAR Cup Series 2024 Championship 4 Round Drivers at Phoenix Raceway

Rank

Driver

Races

Poles

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

DNFs

Average Finish

Driver Rating

 

  
   

1

Ryan Blaney

17

3

0

8

12

2

10.9

99.2

    

2

Joey Logano

31

2

3

8

16

5

13.5

93.4

    

3

Tyler Reddick

9

0

0

2

3

1

17.9

82.3

    

4

William Byron

13

1

1

2

7

0

11.8

93.6

    

* – Based on last 38 races at Phoenix Raceway (2005 – 2024).

 

 

 

Active NASCAR Cup Series Drivers with Championships (1949 - 2023)

Rank

No. of Titles

Active Champions (7)

Years

1

2

Joey Logano

2022, 2018
 

2

Kyle Busch

2019, 2015

3

1

Ryan Blaney

2023
 

1

Kyle Larson

2021
 

1

Chase Elliott

2020
 

1

Martin Truex Jr.

2017
 

1

Brad Keselowski

2012

 

 

 

 

NASCAR Cup Series Season Finale Playoff Fast Facts: Phoenix Raceway

·       The 2024 season marks the fifth year the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race will be held at Phoenix Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona (2020-2024), and the 21st consecutive season Phoenix has participated in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

·       Since the inception of the Playoffs in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2004, Phoenix Raceway has occupied three different positions on the postseason schedule:

o   In 2004, Phoenix Raceway hosted the eighth race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and the event was won by NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr.

o   From 2005 – 2019 (15 seasons), Phoenix Raceway hosted the penultimate race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs – Race No. 9 of 10. The event became the elimination race of the Round of 8 from 2014-2019.

o   From 2020-2024 (five seasons), Phoenix Raceway has hosted the season finale race in the NASCAR Cup Series.  

·       A total of 12 different drivers have won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff races at Phoenix Raceway.  

·       Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in Playoff race wins at Phoenix Raceway with four victories (2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014). Jimmie Johnson leads all active drivers this weekend with three wins (2007-2009).

·       Since hosting the series’ Championship Race (2020-2023), the winner of the race has also won the NASCAR Cup Series title in three of the last four seasons - Chase Elliott won at Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 8, 2020, Kyle Larson won at Phoenix on Nov. 7, 2021, and Joey Logano won at Phoenix on Nov. 6, 2022. Last season, Ryan Blaney finished runner-up at Phoenix to win his first title.

·       Among the Championship 4 drivers this season – Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and William Byron – Logano is the only driver to win a Playoff race at Phoenix and has done so twice – in 2016 and 2022.

 

NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Race Winners at Phoenix Raceway

Track

Date

Race No.

Race Winner

Crew Chief

Organization

Phoenix

11/7/2004

34

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Tony Eury Sr.

Dale Earnhardt, Inc.

Phoenix

11/13/2005

35

Kyle Busch

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/12/2006

35

Kevin Harvick

Todd Berrier

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/11/2007

35

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/9/2008

35

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/15/2009

35

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/14/2010

35

Carl Edwards

Bob Osborne

RFK Racing

Phoenix

11/13/2011

35

Kasey Kahne

Kenny Francis

Red Bull Racing

Phoenix

11/11/2012

35

Kevin Harvick

Gil Martin

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/10/2013

35

Kevin Harvick

Gil Martin

Richard Childress Racing

Phoenix

11/9/2014

35

Kevin Harvick

Rodney Childers

Stewart-Haas Racing

Phoenix

11/15/2015

35

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Greg Ives

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/13/2016

35

Joey Logano

Todd Gordon

Team Penske

Phoenix

11/12/2017

35

Matt Kenseth

Jason Ratcliff

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/11/2018

35

Kyle Busch

Adam Stevens

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/10/2019

35

Denny Hamlin

Christopher Gabehart

Joe Gibbs Racing

Phoenix

11/8/2020

36

Chase Elliott

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/7/2021

36

Kyle Larson

Cliff Daniels

Hendrick Motorsports

Phoenix

11/6/2022

36

Joey Logano

Paul Wolfe

Team Penske

Phoenix

11/5/2023

36

Ross Chastain

Philip Surgen

Trackhouse Racing

 

NASCAR Cup Series Season Finale Playoff Fast Facts: Phoenix Raceway

 

·       A total of 16 different crew chiefs have won a NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, led by NASCAR Hall of Famer Chad Knaus with three wins (at Phoenix from 2007-2009 all with driver Jimmie Johnson).

·       A total of nine different organizations have won a NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, led by Hendrick Motorsports with seven wins (2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2015, 2020, 2021).

·       Five times a non-Playoff driver has won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway: Kyle Busch (2005), Kasey Kahne (2011), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2015), Matt Kenseth (2017) and Ross Chastain (2023).

1.     In 2005, Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was ranked 19th in the point standings at the time of the win.

2.     In 2011, Kasey Kahne won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was ranked 14th in the point standings at the time of the win.

3.     In 2015, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was seventh in the point standings at the time of the win. Earnhardt Jr. had made the Playoffs in 2015 but was eliminated in the Round of 12.

4.     In 2017, Matt Kenseth won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the ninth race on the postseason schedule, and was seventh in points at the time of the win. Kenseth had made the Playoffs in 2017 but was eliminated in the Round of 12.

5.     In 2023, Ross Chastain won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, then the Championship race on the postseason schedule, and he was ninth in points at the time of the win. Chastain had made the Playoffs in 2023 but was eliminated in the Round of 12.

·       The worst finish in a NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Phoenix Raceway by a driver that went on to win the title the same season was 38th by Jimmie Johnson in 2016 - then the penultimate event of the season.

·       Prior to the 2020 season, Homestead-Miami Speedway hosted the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff’s season finale from 2004-2019 (16 seasons). Phoenix Raceway is just the second track to host the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race in the Playoffs.

·       A total of 14 different drivers have won the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race during the Playoff Era: 2004-2023.

·       Greg Biffle leads the NASCAR Cup Series in Championship Race wins from 2004-2023 with three victories (2004, 2005, 2006 – all at Homestead-Miami Speedway).

·       Joey Logano is the only current Championship 4 driver with a win in a NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race, and he has done it twice (Homestead 2018, Phoenix 2022).

·       A total of 14 different crew chiefs have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race, led by Doug Richert with three wins (at Homestead from 2004-2006 all with driver Greg Biffle).

·       A total of seven different organizations have won the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (2004-2023), led by RFK Racing with six victories (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 all at Homestead-Miami).

·       Hendrick Motorsports leads all organizations in NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race wins at Phoenix Raceway with two (2020, 2021).  

NASCAR Cup Series Season Finale Playoff Fast Facts: Phoenix Raceway

NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race Winners (2004-2023)

Date

Track

Race Winner

Crew Chief

Organization

11/21/2004

Homestead

Greg Biffle

Doug Richert

RFK Racing

11/20/2005

Homestead

Greg Biffle

Doug Richert

RFK Racing

11/19/2006

Homestead

Greg Biffle

Doug Richert

RFK Racing

11/18/2007

Homestead

Matt Kenseth

Robbie Reiser

RFK Racing

11/16/2008

Homestead

Carl Edwards

Bob Osborne

RFK Racing

11/22/2009

Homestead

Denny Hamlin

Mike Ford

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/21/2010

Homestead

Carl Edwards

Bob Osborne

RFK Racing

11/20/2011

Homestead

Tony Stewart

Darian Grubb

Stewart-Haas Racing

11/18/2012

Homestead

Jeff Gordon

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

11/17/2013

Homestead

Denny Hamlin

Darian Grubb

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/16/2014

Homestead

Kevin Harvick

Rodney Childers

Stewart-Haas Racing

11/22/2015

Homestead

Kyle Busch

Adam Stevens

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/20/2016

Homestead

Jimmie Johnson

Chad Knaus

Hendrick Motorsports

11/19/2017

Homestead

Martin Truex Jr

Cole Pearn

Furniture Row Racing

11/18/2018

Homestead

Joey Logano

Todd Gordon

Team Penske

11/17/2019

Homestead

Kyle Busch

Adam Stevens

Joe Gibbs Racing

11/8/2020

Phoenix

Chase Elliott

Alan Gustafson

Hendrick Motorsports

11/7/2021

Phoenix

Kyle Larson

Cliff Daniels

Hendrick Motorsports

11/6/2022

Phoenix

Joey Logano

Paul Wolfe

Team Penske

11/5/2023

Phoenix

Ross Chastain

Philip Surgen

Trackhouse Racing

 

·       Since the inception of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in 2004, the winner of the Championship Race has won the season title 10 times: 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. 

1.     In 2011, Tony Stewart won from the 15th starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and as a result secured his third-career NASCAR Cup Series championship in the closest points battle in series history – tied with Carl Edwards – Stewart won the title by virtue of the tiebreaker: most wins.

2.     In 2014, Kevin Harvick won from the fifth starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the first year of the elimination-style format of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, as a result he won his first series title.  

3.     In 2015, Kyle Busch won from the third starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the second year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, as a result he won his first series championship.  

4.     In 2016, Jimmie Johnson won from the 14th starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the third year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he tied NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the series-most championships with seven each.

5.     In 2017, Martin Truex Jr. won from the second starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the fourth year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship.  

6.     In 2018, Joey Logano won from the fifth starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the fifth year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship.  

7.     In 2019, Kyle Busch won from the fourth starting position at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the sixth year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he became just the second active driver at the time with multiple titles (20115, 2019) joining seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson.    

NASCAR Cup Series Season Finale Playoff Fast Facts: Phoenix Raceway

8.     In 2020, Chase Elliott won from the first starting position at Phoenix Raceway in the seventh year of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship. Worth noting, Elliott was served a pre-race penalty and as a result of serving the penalty he actually started the race from back of the field and still won.  

9.     In 2021, Kyle Larson won from the pole position at Phoenix Raceway in the eighth year of the elimination-style format of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and as a result he won his first series championship.    

10.  In 2022, Joey Logano won from the pole position at Phoenix Raceway in the ninth year of the elimination-style format of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. With the win, Logano earned his second NASCAR Cup Series championship (2018, 2022), becoming just the second active driver with multiple titles.    

·       The worst finish in a Playoff race by the eventual series champion at Homestead-Miami Speedway was 15th, and it occurred three times: Tony Stewart in 2005, Jimmie Johnson in 2008 and Brad Keselowski in 2012. 

·       Three non-Playoff drivers have won the season finale Playoff race: Greg Biffle (Homestead: 2004 and 2006), Denny Hamlin (Homestead: 2013) and Ross Chastain (Phoenix 2023)   

NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 Comparisons:

Comparing Season Stats Heading into the Season Finale (in descending order chronologically)

 

2024

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Ryan Blaney

35

3

11

17

1

555

8,598

6.45%

13.1

15.6

89.3

Joey Logano

35

3

6

12

3

307

9,123

3.37%

12.3

17.6

84.2

Tyler Reddick

35

3

12

20

3

597

9,170

6.51%

10.2

13.4

90.0

William Byron

35

3

12

20

1

338

9,225

3.66%

9.6

13.2

91.8

Totals & Averages

  

12

41

69

8

1797

36,116

5.0%

11.3

15.0

88.8

Winning Percentage

34.29%

            
                       

2023

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Ryan Blaney

35

3

7

17

0

560

8,748

6.40%

12.6

14.4

88.3

Christopher Bell

35

2

10

19

6

599

8,760

6.84%

9.5

12.3

92.0

Kyle Larson

35

4

14

17

2

1,127

8,628

13.06%

10.5

15

96.4

William Byron

35

6

14

20

3

921

8,752

10.52%

11.2

11.2

98.1

Totals & Averages

  

15

45

73

11

3,207

34,888

9.20%

11.0

13.2

93.7

Winning Percentage

42.86%

            
                       

2022

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Joey Logano

35

3

10

16

3

597

8,981

6.60%

10.7

13.8

89.5

Christopher Bell

35

3

12

19

4

573

8,504

6.70%

9.9

13.9

91.2

Ross Chastain

35

2

14

20

0

692

8,740

7.90%

14.1

13.5

93.4

Chase Elliott

35

5

12

20

3

857

8,514

10.10%

10.8

12

99.1

Totals & Averages

  

13

48

75

10

2,719

34,739

7.80%

11.4

13.3

93.3

Winning Percentage

37.10%

            
                       

2021

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Kyle Larson

35

9

19

25

1

2,474

8,688

28.50%

6.2

9.3

111.9

Chase Elliott

35

2

14

20

0

858

8,738

9.80%

8.2

11.8

101.5

Martin Truex Jr.

35

4

12

19

0

793

8,822

9.00%

8.3

12.3

96.7

Denny Hamlin

35

2

18

24

0

1,502

8,884

16.90%

6.4

8.6

109.2

Totals & Averages

  

17

63

88

1

5,627

35,132

16.10%

7.3

10.5

104.8

Winning Percentage

48.60%

            
                       

2020

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Joey Logano

35

3

11

20

0

814

9,473

8.60%

6.5

12.1

101.0

Chase Elliott

35

4

14

21

1

1,094

9,229

11.90%

9.2

12

102.3

Brad Keselowski

35

4

12

23

0

936

9,427

9.90%

7.7

10.3

99.4

Denny Hamlin

35

7

17

20

0

1,083

9,579

11.30%

9

9.5

100.3

Totals & Averages

  

18

54

84

1

3,927

37,708

10.40%

8.1

11

100.8

Winning Percentage

51.40%

            

 

                      

2019

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Denny Hamlin

35

6

19

23

3

920

9,857

9.30%

11.3

9.5

97.7

Kyle Busch

35

4

16

26

1

1,462

9,900

14.80%

12.5

9.2

107.5

Martin Truex Jr.

35

7

14

23

0

1,268

9,885

12.80%

13.4

10

102.7

Kevin Harvick

35

4

14

25

6

912

9,537

9.60%

8.7

10.2

104.9

Totals & Averages

  

21

63

97

10

4,562

39,179

11.60%

11.5

9.7

103.2

Winning Percentage

60.00%

                  

 

 

NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 Comparisons Cont.:

Comparing Season Stats Heading into the Season Finale (in descending order chronologically)

 

2018

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Joey Logano

35

2

12

25

1

854

9,559

8.90%

9.9

10.9

96.1

Kyle Busch

35

8

21

27

4

1,448

9,734

14.90%

7.6

8.4

109.3

Martin Truex Jr.

35

4

19

20

4

996

9,493

10.50%

10.1

11

101.2

Kevin Harvick

35

8

22

28

4

1,932

9,424

20.50%

8.7

9

115.2

Totals & Averages

  

22

74

100

13

5,230

38,210

13.70%

9.1

9.8

105.5

Winning Percentage

62.90%

                  
                       

2017

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Martin Truex Jr.

35

7

18

25

3

2,175

10,101

21.50%

6.9

9.7

115.7

Kyle Busch

35

5

13

21

8

1,980

10,017

19.80%

7.3

11.8

108.2

Brad Keselowski

35

3

15

20

2

777

9,226

8.40%

8.9

12.6

95.9

Kevin Harvick

35

2

13

22

4

850

9,888

8.60%

8.8

11.3

102.7

Totals & Averages

  

17

59

88

17

5,782

39,232

14.70%

8.0

11.3

105.6

Winning Percentage

48.60%

                  
                       

2016

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Jimmie Johnson

35

4

10

15

1

734

9,963

7.40%

12

14.3

95.7

Kyle Busch

35

4

17

24

2

1,378

9,657

14.30%

9.6

11.6

104.7

Carl Edwards

35

3

9

18

6

871

10,046

8.70%

7.1

13.3

97.6

Joey Logano

35

3

15

25

3

697

9,892

7.00%

7.9

10.7

100.8

Totals & Averages

  

14

51

82

12

3,680

39,558

9.30%

9.1

12.5

99.7

Winning Percentage

40.00%

                  
                       

2015

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Kyle Busch

35

4

11

15

1

695

6,485

10.70%

8.4

11.2

107.1

Kevin Harvick

35

3

22

27

1

2,248

9,913

22.70%

8.2

8.9

118.9

Martin Truex Jr.

35

1

8

22

0

564

10,005

5.60%

12.5

12.2

100.0

Jeff Gordon

35

1

5

20

4

256

10,025

2.60%

12

13.9

92.5

Totals & Averages

  

9

46

84

6

3,763

36,428

10.30%

10.3

11.5

104.6

Winning Percentage

25.70%

                  
                       

2014

Starts

Wins

Top Fives

Top 10s

Poles

Laps Led

Laps Completed

% Led

Avg. Start

Avg. Finish

Driver Rating

Joey Logano

35

5

16

22

1

993

10,127

9.80%

9.8

11.2

106.7

Kevin Harvick

35

4

13

19

8

2,083

9,765

21.30%

9.2

13.3

109.9

Denny Hamlin

35

1

7

17

3

313

9,443

3.30%

14.7

14.5

90.7

Ryan Newman

35

0

4

15

0

41

10,212

0.40%

13.1

13

86.1

Totals & Averages

  

10

40

73

12

3,430

39,547

8.70%

11.7

13.0

98.4

Winning Percentage

28.60%

                  

 

 

 

 

Phoenix Raceway Stats & Tidbits:

Race Name: NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race

Season Race #: 36 of 36 (November 10, 2024)

Playoff Race #: 10 of 10

Track Size/Type: 1 Mile Asphalt Oval

The Purse: $11,700,064

The Time: 3 p.m. ET

TV: NBC, 2 p.m. ET

Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR (Channel 90)

Banking/Turn 1 & 2: 9 degrees

Banking/Turn 3 & 4: 11 degrees

Banking/Frontstretch: 3 degrees

Banking/Backstretch: 9 degrees

Race Length: 312 laps / 500 Kilometers / 312 Miles

Stage 1 Length: 60 laps

Stage 2 Length: 125 laps

Final Stage Length: 127 laps

 

QUALIFYING / RACE RECORDS

 

Track Qualifying Record:

Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, 143.158 mph, 25.147 secs., November 13, 2015

 

Track Race Record:

Tony Stewart, Joe Gibbs Racing Pontiac, 118.132 mph, (02:38:28), November 7, 1999

 

2023 Championship Race Pole Winner:

William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, 132.597 mph, 27.150 secs., November 4, 2023

 

2023 Championship Race Winner:

Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, 108.827 mph, (02:52:01), November 5, 2023

 

HISTORY

·       Construction was completed, on what was then known as Phoenix International Raceway, in January of 1964.

·       The facility consisted of a one-mile oval and a 2.5-mile road course.

·       In 1985, Buddy Jobe purchased Phoenix Raceway from then owner Dennis Wood. Jobe soon initiated a massive improvement program to upgrade the track and its facilities.

HISTORY

·       The first NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was held on November 6, 1988 and was won by NASCAR Hall of Famer Alan Kulwicki. Kulwicki celebrated by performing the first-ever ‘Polish Victory Lap’

·       International Speedway Corporation (now NASCAR) purchased Phoenix Raceway in 1997.

·       The first spring race at Phoenix Raceway was held on April 23, 2005 and was also the first night race, which was won by Kurt Busch.

·       The track underwent its first repave in 2011. The construction began in March and concluded in September of that year.

·       The following changes were made during the construction period (March – Sept. 2011):

o   Widened the frontstretch from 52 to 62 feet and reconfigured pit road with the installation of concrete pit stalls

o   Pushed the dog-leg curve between Turn 2 and Turn 3 out 95 feet and tightened the turn radius of the dog-leg from 800 to 500 feet

o   Implemented banking, including 11-degree banking between Turn 1 and Turn 2; 10-11-degree banking in the apex of the dog-leg; and 9-degree banking in Turns 3 and 4.

·       Phoenix Raceway underwent a second reconstruction following the Spring race of 2018, with many new fan amenities added to the track, as well as the track itself being reconfigured so that the start/finish line is now just before the dog leg. 

·       In total, there have been 56 NASCAR Cup Series races at Phoenix Raceway, one per season from 1988-2004 and two each season since.

·       Phoenix Raceway has participated in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs since 2004.

·       The 2020 season marked the first year Phoenix Raceway hosted the Championship Race (2020-2024).

 

STARTS

·       In total 245 different drivers have competed in at least one NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway, and 189 have competed in more than one Cup Series race at Phoenix.

·       Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in starts at Phoenix Raceway with 42 starts.

·       Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch lead all active NASCAR Cup Series drivers in starts at Phoenix Raceway with 38 starts each.

·       Top five all-time in starts at Phoenix: Kevin Harvick (42), Kurt Busch (39), Ryan Newman (39), Denny Hamlin (38), Kyle Busch (38).  

·       In total 25 different drivers have made their first NASCAR Cup Series career start at Phoenix Raceway; none are currently active in the series; the most recent was Bayley Currey on March 10, 2019.

·       Of the 25 drivers that made their first NASCAR Cup Series start at Phoenix Raceway, Clint Bowyer had the best finish in his series debut at Phoenix, with a 22nd-place finish on April 23, 2005.

STARTS

Drivers That Made Their Cup Series Debut at Phoenix Raceway

 

First-Time Drivers

Date

 

First-Time Drivers

Date

1

Bayley Currey

Sunday, March 10, 2019

14

Jack Sprague

Sunday, October 27, 1996

2

Quin Houff

Sunday, March 10, 2019

15

Lance Hooper

Sunday, October 27, 1996

3

Tanner Berryhill

Sunday, November 11, 2018

16

Ernie Cope

Sunday, October 29, 1995

4

D.J. Kennington

Sunday, November 13, 2016

17

Rich Woodland Jr

Sunday, October 31, 1993

5

Ryan Ellis

Sunday, November 15, 2015

18

Wayne Jacks

Sunday, October 31, 1993

6

Matt DiBenedetto

Sunday, March 15, 2015

19

Jeff Davis

Sunday, November 1, 1992

7

Cole Whitt

Sunday, November 13, 2011

20

Mike Wallace

Sunday, November 3, 1991

8

Sam Hornish Jr

Sunday, November 11, 2007

21

Brent Kaeding

Sunday, November 4, 1990

9

Brandon Whitt

Sunday, November 12, 2006

22

Mark Reed

Sunday, November 4, 1990

10

Jerry Robertson

Sunday, November 13, 2005

23

Bill Sedgwick

Sunday, November 5, 1989

11

Clint Bowyer

Saturday, April 23, 2005

24

Bobby Hamilton

Sunday, November 5, 1989

12

Christian Fittipaldi

Sunday, November 10, 2002

25

Gary Collins

Sunday, November 6, 1988

13

Ryan Newman

Sunday, November 5, 2000

 

    

 

·       Chase Elliott leads the NASCAR Cup Series in average starting position at Phoenix Raceway with a 6.313 in 16 starts.

Top 10 in Average Starting Position at Phoenix Raceway (All-Time & Active)

Rank

All-Time Drivers

Avg Start

Race

Rank

Active Drivers

Avg Start

Races

1

Chase Elliott

6.313

16

1

Chase Elliott

6.313

16

2

Ryan Blaney

6.706

17

2

Ryan Blaney

6.706

17

3

Kyle Larson

6.800

20

3

Kyle Larson

6.800

20

4

Rusty Wallace

8.053

19

4

Ty Gibbs

9.000

3

5

Alan Kulwicki

8.600

5

5

Denny Hamlin

9.263

38

6

Ty Gibbs

9.000

3

6

William Byron

10.000

13

7

Denny Hamlin

9.263

38

7

Christopher Bell

10.667

9

8

William Byron

10.000

13

8

Joey Logano

10.903

31

9

Christopher Bell

10.667

9

9

Kyle Busch

11.395

38

10

Jeff Gordon

10.794

34

10

Martin Truex Jr

11.865

37

 

 

POLES

·       There have been 27 different NASCAR Cup Series pole winners at Phoenix Raceway, and 16 of 27 pole winners have won multiple poles at the one-mile track.

·       Geoffrey Bodine won the first NASCAR Cup Series pole at Phoenix Raceway in 1988 at a speed of 123.203 mph (29.220 secs.) in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

·       Ryan Newman (2002, 2003, 2004, 2008) and Kyle Busch (2006, 2012, 2016, 2019) lead the NASCAR Cup Series in poles at Phoenix Raceway with four each.

·       Youngest series Phoenix pole winner: Kyle Busch (April 22, 2006 – 20 years, 11 months, 20 days).

·       Oldest series Phoenix pole winner: Mark Martin (March 3, 2013 – 54 years, 1 month, 22 days).

POLES

·       This weekend, 11 of the 27 NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix Raceway pole winners are active, and three of the 11 are Championship 4 Round drivers – Ryan Blaney (three poles), Joey Logano (two poles) and William Byron (one pole).

Active Phoenix Pole Winners

Poles

Seasons

Kyle Busch

4

2006, 2012, 2016, 2019

Denny Hamlin

3

2024, 2005, 2014

Ryan Blaney

3

2017, 2019, 2022

Jimmie Johnson

3

2015, 2013, 2008

Kyle Larson

2

2021, 2023

Joey Logano

2

2017, 2022

Martin Truex Jr

2

2009, 2018

William Byron

1

2023

Chase Elliott

1

2020

Alex Bowman

1

2016

Brad Keselowski

1

2014

 

·       Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards are the only drivers to win consecutive poles at Phoenix Raceway.

o   Newman won three-straight (2002-04)

o   Gordon won in the Fall of 2006 and the Spring of 2007

o   Edwards won in the Fall of 2010 and Spring of 2011.

·       Four drivers have won their first career NASCAR Cup Series pole at Phoenix Raceway: Casey Atwood (October 2001), Denny Hamlin (November 2005), AJ Allmendinger (April 2010) and Alex Bowman (November 2016).

·       A total of 17 different organizations have won a pole in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway. 

Rank

Organizations

Poles

Seasons

1

Hendrick Motorsports

15

2023 sweep, '21, '20, '16, '15, '13, '09, '08, '07, '06 sweep, '05, '89, '88

2

Team Penske

11

2022 sweep, '19, '17, '14, '08, '04, '03, '02, '00, '92

3

Joe Gibbs Racing

7

2024, ‘19, '16, '14, '12, '05, '96

4

RFK Racing

4

2011 sweep, '10, '07

5

Stewart-Haas Racing

2

2018, '15

6

Michael Waltrip Racing

2

2013, '12

7

Petty Enterprises

2

1999, '97

8

Junior Johnson & Associates

2

1993, '91

9

Furniture Row Racing

1

2018

10

Wood Brothers Racing

1

2017

11

Richard Petty Motorsports

1

2010

12

Earnhardt Ganassi Racing

1

2009

13

Evernham Motorsports

1

2001

14

Andy Petree Racing

1

1998

15

Elliott Racing

1

1995

16

Morgan-McClure Motorsports

1

1994

17

Blue Max Racing

1

1990

 

 

 

POLES

·       Hendrick Motorsports leads the NASCAR Cup Series in poles at Phoenix Raceway with 15 poles among 10 drivers: Geoff Bodine (1988), Ken Schrader (1989), Jeff Gordon (2005, 2006, 2007), Kyle Busch (2006), Jimmie Johnson (2008, 2013, 2015), Mark Martin (2009), Alex Bowman (2016), Chase Elliott (2020), Kyle Larson (2021, 2023) and William Byron (2023).

·       Five different manufacturers have won at least one pole in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway, led by Chevrolet with 21 poles; followed by Ford (17), Toyota (eight), Dodge (four) and Pontiac (four).

 

·       Chevrolet has won the most consecutive NASCAR Cup Series poles at Phoenix Raceway with five straight from 2005-2007.

 

 

WINS

·       A total of 31 different NASCAR Cup Series drivers have won at Phoenix Raceway, and 13 of the 31 have won multiple times at the one-mile track.

·       This weekend, 10 of the 31 NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix Raceway winners are active.

Active Phoenix Race Winners

Wins

Seasons

Jimmie Johnson

4

2009, 2008 sweep, 2007

Joey Logano

3

2022, 2020, 2016

Kyle Busch

3

2019, 2018, 2005

Denny Hamlin

2

2019, 2012

Christopher Bell

1

2024

Ross Chastain

1

2023

William Byron

1

2023

Chase Briscoe

1

2022

Kyle Larson

1

2021

Martin Truex Jr

1

2021

Chase Elliott

1

2020

 

·       Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in wins at Phoenix Raceway with nine victories (2006 sweep, 2012 Playoff race, 2013 Playoff race, 2014 sweep, 2015 Spring race, 2016 Spring race, 2018 Spring race).

·       Jimmie Johnson leads all active Cup drivers this weekend in wins at Phoenix Raceway with four (2007, 2008 sweep, 2009).

·       Of the 10 active winners this weekend, two are current Championship 4 contenders – Joey Logano (2016, 2020, 2022) and William Byron (2023).

·       A total of 13 drivers have multiple wins at Phoenix Raceway: Kevin Harvick leads the series in wins with nine followed by Jimmie Johnson (four), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (three), Kyle Busch (three), Joe Logano (three), Davey Allison (two), Jeff Burton (two), Jeff Gordon (two) Carl Edwards (two), Mark Martin (two), Matt Kenseth (two), Ryan Newman (two), and Denny Hamlin (two).

·       Of the 13 drivers with multiple wins at Phoenix Raceway, Mark Martin (Ford; 1993 and Chevrolet; 2009) and Kyle Busch (Chevrolet; 2005 and Toyota; 2018, 2019) are the only two drivers to win in two different manufacturers.

WINS

·       Six drivers have won consecutive races at Phoenix Raceway: Davey Allison (1991,1992); Jeff Burton (2000, 2001); Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2003, 2004); Kevin Harvick (swept 2006, then 2013 Playoff race, swept 2014 and 2015 spring race); Jimmie Johnson (fall race of 2007, swept 2008); Kyle Busch (Playoff race 2018, Spring race 2019).

·       Three drivers have scored their first career NASCAR Cup Series victory at Phoenix Raceway - Alan Kulwicki (11/6/1988), Bobby Hamilton (10/27/1996) and Chase Briscoe (3/13/2022).

·       In total 23 different starting positions on the grid have resulted in victories in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway.

·       Since hosting the Championship Race in 2020 (last four Playoffs races) – only two starting positions have resulted in wins at Phoenix Raceway – the pole or first starting position (three wins) and the eighth starting position (one win).  

·       Eight of the 56 NASCAR Cup Series races (14.2%) at Phoenix Raceway have been won from the pole or first starting position: Jeff Gordon (Spring race of 2007), Jimmie Johnson (Playoff race of 2008), Mark Martin (Spring race of 2009), Carl Edwards (Playoff race of 2010), Kevin Harvick (Spring race of 2015), Chase Elliott (Playoff race of 2020), Kyle Larson (Playoff race of 2021) and Joey Logano (Playoff race of 2022).

·       The first and third starting positions are tied for the most proficient starting position in the field producing more winners (eight each) than any other starting positions – the most recent was William Byron’s win in 2023 from the third starting position.

·       Ricky Rudd won the 1995 Phoenix Raceway race from the 29th-place starting position, the furthest in the field a NASCAR Cup Series race winner has started at the one-mile raceway. 

·       Kyle Busch won the 2005 Phoenix Raceway race from the 15th starting position, the furthest back an active NASCAR Cup Series race winner has started at the one-mile track. 

 

NASCAR Cup Series Wins by Starting Positions at Phoenix Raceway

Starting Position

Wins

Winning %

Starting Position

Wins

Winning %

1

8

14.29%

13

6

10.71%

2

3

5.36%

14

2

3.57%

3

8

14.29%

15

3

5.36%

4

2

3.57%

17

1

1.79%

5

1

1.79%

18

1

1.79%

6

4

7.14%

19

2

3.57%

7

2

3.57%

20

1

1.79%

8

1

1.79%

21

1

1.79%

9

2

3.57%

22

1

1.79%

10

2

3.57%

28

1

1.79%

11

2

3.57%

29

1

1.79%

12

1

1.79%

 

 

 

Stats

Winning %

Wins

Winning from the Pole:

14.29%

8

Winning from the Front Row:

19.64%

11

Winning from a Top-Five Starting Position:

39.29%

22

Winning from a Top-10 Starting Position:

58.93%

33

Winning After Starting Outside the Top 20:

7.14%

4

 

WINS

·       A total of 11 of the 56 (19.64%) NASCAR Cup Series races at Phoenix Raceway have been won from the front row: eight from the first starting position and three from second starting position. 

·       Youngest NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix winner: Kyle Busch (November 13, 2005 – 20 years, 6 months, 11 days).

·       Oldest NASCAR Cup Series Phoenix winner: Mark Martin (April 18, 2009 – 50 years, 3 months, 9 days).

·       A total of 27 of the 29 NASCAR Cup Series drivers who have won at Phoenix Raceway participated in at least two or more races before visiting Victory Lane. NASCAR Hall of Famers Alan Kulwicki (11/6/1988) and Tony Stewart (11/7/1999) are the only two drivers to win at Phoenix Raceway in their first appearance.

·       In total 14 different organizations have won at Phoenix Raceway in the NASCAR Cup Series, led by Hendrick Motorsports with 13 victories.

Rank

Organizations

Wins

Seasons

1

Hendrick Motorsports

13

2023, '21, '20, '15, '11, '09 sweep, '08 sweep, '07 sweep, '05, '94

2

Joe Gibbs Racing

8

2024, '21, '19 sweep, '18, '17, 12, 99

3

Stewart-Haas Racing

7

2022, '18, '16, '15, '14 sweep, '10

4

RFK Racing

7

2013, '10, '05, '02, '01, '00, '93

5

Richard Childress Racing

6

2017, '13, '12, '06 sweep, '90

6

Team Penske

4

2022, '20, '16, '98

7

Robert Yates Racing

3

1997, '92, '91

8

Dale Earnhardt, Inc.

2

2004, '03

9

Trackhouse Racing

1

2023

10

Red Bull Racing

1

2011

11

Petty Enterprises

1

1996

12

Rudd Performance Motorsports

1

1995

13

Melling Racing

1

1989

14

AK Racing

1

1988

 

·       Hendrick Motorsports leads the NASCAR Cup Series in wins at Phoenix Raceway with 13 victories among nine drivers: Terry Labonte (1994), Kyle Busch (2005), Jeff Gordon (2007, 2011), Jimmie Johnson (2007, 2008 sweep, 2009), Mark Martin (2009), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2015), Chase Elliott (2020), Kyle Larson (2021) and William Byron (2023).

·       In total four different manufacturers have won at Phoenix Raceway in the NASCAR Cup Series, led by Chevrolet with 27 victories and followed by Ford (19), Toyota (8) and Pontiac (2).

 

ADDITIONAL FINISHING POSITIONS

Runner-Up Finishes:

·       A total of 33 different NASCAR Cup Series drivers have finished runner-up at Phoenix Raceway.

·       NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin leads the NASCAR Cup Series in runner-up finishes at Phoenix Raceway with five second-place finishes.

·       Kyle Busch leads all active NASCAR Cup Series drivers in runner-up finishes at Phoenix with four second-place finishes.

ADDITIONAL FINISHING POSITIONS

Runner-Up Finishes:

Top Five in Runner-Up Finishes at Phoenix Raceway (All-Time & Active)

Rank

All-time Drivers

Runner-Ups

Rank

Active Drivers

Runner-Ups

1

Mark Martin

5

1

Kyle Busch

4

2

Kyle Busch

4

2

Jimmie Johnson

3

3

Jimmie Johnson

3

3

Ryan Blaney

3
 

Kevin Harvick

3

4

Brad Keselowski

2
 

Ryan Blaney

3

 

Martin Truex Jr

2
 

Tony Stewart

3

 

    

 

 

Top-Five Finishes:

·       A total of 58 different drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series have finished inside the top-five at Phoenix.

·       Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in top-five finishes at Phoenix Raceway with 20 top fives.

·       Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson lead all active drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series in top-five finishes at Phoenix Raceway with 16 top fives each.

Top Five in Top-Five Finishes at Phoenix Raceway (All-Time & Active)

Rank

All-time Drivers

Top Fives

Rank

Active Drivers

Top Fives

1

Kevin Harvick

20

1

Denny Hamlin

16

2

Denny Hamlin

16

 

Jimmie Johnson

16
 

Jimmie Johnson

16

3

Kyle Busch

12

4

Jeff Gordon

12

4

Brad Keselowski

9
 

Kyle Busch

12

5

Joey Logano

8
 

Mark Martin

12

 

Kyle Larson

8
     

 

Ryan Blaney

8

 

Top-10 Finishes:

·       A total of 94 different drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series have finished inside the top-10 at Phoenix Raceway.

·       Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in top-10 finishes at Phoenix Raceway with 28 top 10s. 

·       Kyle Busch leads all active drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series in top-10 finishes at Phoenix Raceway with 26 top 10s. 

Top Five in Top-10 Finishes at Phoenix Raceway (All-Time & Active)

Rank

All-time Drivers

Top 10s

Rank

Active Drivers

Top 10s

1

Kevin Harvick

31

1

Kyle Busch

26

2

Kyle Busch

26

2

Denny Hamlin

22

3

Jeff Gordon

24

 

Jimmie Johnson

22

4

Denny Hamlin

22

4

Joey Logano

16
 

Jimmie Johnson

22

 

Martin Truex Jr

16

 

ADDITIONAL FINISHING POSITIONS

Average Finish:

·       Alan Kulwicki (five starts) leads the Cup Series in average finishing position at Phoenix Raceway with a 5.200.

·       Jimmie Johnson (35 starts) leads all active drivers in average finishing position at Phoenix Raceway with a 10.229.

·       Of this season’s Championship Four drivers, Ryan Blaney has the best average finish at Phoenix Raceway with a 10.9; followed by William Byron with a 11.7, Joey Logano with a 13.4 and Tyler Reddick with a 17.8.

Top 10 in Average Finishing Position at Phoenix Raceway (All-Time & Active)

Rank

All-time Drivers

Avg Finish

Races

Rank

Active Drivers

Avg Finish

Races

1

Alan Kulwicki

5.200

5

1

Jimmie Johnson

10.229

35

2

Kevin Harvick

8.524

42

2

Denny Hamlin

10.816

38

3

Dale Earnhardt

9.538

13

3

Ryan Blaney

10.941

17

4

Mark Martin

9.588

34

4

Kyle Busch

11.237

38

5

Jimmie Johnson

10.229

35

5

Kyle Larson

11.400

20

6

Jeff Gordon

10.765

34

6

William Byron

11.769

13

7

Denny Hamlin

10.816

38

7

Chase Elliott

12.625

16

8

Ryan Blaney

10.941

17

8

Joey Logano

13.484

31

9

Davey Allison

11.000

5

9

Brad Keselowski

13.600

30

10

Kyle Busch

11.237

38

10

Chase Briscoe

14.571

7

 

·       Since the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022 (last five Phoenix races), Ryan Blaney has the best average finish in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway with a 3.0; followed by Ross Chastain with a 7.2, Chase Briscoe with a 9.0 and William Byron with a 9.4. … The other two Championship 4 drivers have an average finish in the Next Gen car at Phoenix of: Tyler Reddick (12.2) and Joey Logano (14.4)

 

LAP LEADERS

·       In total 100 different drivers have led at least one lap in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway. 

·       Kevin Harvick leads the NASCAR Cup Series in laps led at Phoenix with 1,722 laps led in 42 starts.   

·       Kyle Busch leads all active drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series in laps led at Phoenix Raceway with 1,190 laps led in 38 starts.   

·       Kevin Harvick also leads the NASCAR Cup Series in laps led the Playoff races at Phoenix with 841 laps led in 20 starts.   

·       Denny Hamlin leads all active drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series in laps led in Playoff races at Phoenix Raceway with 655 laps led in 19 starts.

·       Of the Championship 4 drivers this season, Joey Logano has led the most laps in Playoff races at Phoenix Raceway with 513 laps led in 15 starts.    

 

LAP LEADERS

·       The most laps led by the race winner in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was 264 of the scheduled 312 laps (84.6%) by Kevin Harvick on November 9, 2014 – he started from the third position.

·       The most laps led by a driver that did not win in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was 237 of the scheduled 312 laps (74.3%) by Kyle Busch on November 11, 2012 – he started from the pole but finished third.   

·       The fewest laps led by the race winner in a single NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway was four of the scheduled 378 laps (1.05%) by Ryan Newman on April 10, 2010 – he started from the 14th position.

Top 10 Lap Leaders at Phoenix Raceway in NASCAR Cup Series (All-Time & Active)

Rank

All-Time Drivers

Led

Completed

% Led

Rank

Active Drivers

Led

Completed

% Led

1

Kevin Harvick

1,722

13,095

13.2%

1

Kevin Harvick

1,722

13,095

13.2%

2

Kyle Busch

1,190

11,660

10.2%

2

Kyle Busch

1,190

11,660

10.2%

3

Jimmie Johnson

998

10,619

9.4%

3

Jimmie Johnson

998

10,619

9.4%

4

Denny Hamlin

936

11,802

7.9%

4

Denny Hamlin

936

11,802

7.9%

5

Mark Martin

911

10,477

8.7%

5

Joey Logano

908

9,235

9.8%

6

Joey Logano

908

9,235

9.8%

6

Chase Elliott

546

4,859

11.2%

7

Rusty Wallace

867

5,406

16.0%

7

Ryan Blaney

431

5,001

8.6%

8

Kurt Busch

818

12,094

6.8%

8

Kyle Larson

382

5,888

6.5%

9

Dale Earnhardt Jr

569

8,734

6.5%

9

Martin Truex Jr

315

10,729

2.9%

10

Tony Stewart

555

8,690

6.4%

10

Brad Keselowski

284

8,989

3.2%

 

 

 

TRACK / EVENT STATS

·       Since the advent of electronic scoring (1993), the closest margin of victory in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway is the Spring race of 2016 (March 13, 2016) when Kevin Harvick beat Carl Edwards to the line by 0.010 seconds – which is tied with Atlanta (3/12/2000), Daytona (2/21/2016), and Rockingham (2/22/2004) for the eighth closest finish in series history.

Top Five Closest Margins of Victory at Phoenix Raceway

Margin of Victory

Race Winner

Runner-Up

Date

0.010

Kevin Harvick

Carl Edwards

Sunday, March 13, 2016

0.130

Ryan Newman

Jeff Gordon

Saturday, April 10, 2010

0.170

Mark Martin

Ernie Irvan

Sunday, October 31, 1993

0.250

Kevin Harvick

Jimmie Johnson

Sunday, November 12, 2006

0.276

Joey Logano

Kevin Harvick

Sunday, March 8, 2020

 

·       NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying has never been cancelled due to weather at Phoenix Raceway.

·       But NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying has been cancelled twice due to the pandemic (2020 season finale and 2021 spring race)

 

TRACK / EVENT STATS

·       A total of 10 of the 56 Cup Series races at Phoenix Raceway have ended with NASCAR Overtime (17.8%):

Date

Scheduled

Actual

Overtime

Winner

Runner-Up

Sunday, March 12, 2023

312

317

5

William Byron

Ryan Blaney

Sunday, March 8, 2020

312

316

4

Joey Logano

Kevin Harvick

Sunday, March 19, 2017

312

314

2

Ryan Newman

Kyle Larson

Sunday, November 13, 2016

312

324

12

Joey Logano

Kyle Busch

Sunday, March 13, 2016

312

313

1

Kevin Harvick

Carl Edwards

Sunday, March 3, 2013

312

316

4

Carl Edwards

Jimmie Johnson

Sunday, November 11, 2012

312

319

7

Kevin Harvick

Denny Hamlin

Saturday, April 10, 2010

375

378

3

Ryan Newman

Jeff Gordon

Sunday, November 9, 2008

312

313

1

Jimmie Johnson

Kurt Busch

Sunday, November 7, 2004

312

315

3

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Ryan Newman

 

·       Only two of the 56 NASCAR Cup Series races at Phoenix Raceway have been shortened due to weather:

Date

Scheduled

Actual

Fewer

Winner

Runner-Up

Sunday, November 15, 2015

312

219

-93

Dale Earnhardt Jr

Kevin Harvick

Sunday, October 25, 1998

312

257

-55

Rusty Wallace

Mark Martin

 

·       Most lap leaders in a NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway – 15 (03/04/2012)

·       Fewest lap leaders in a NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway – 2 (11/04/1990)

·       Most lead changes in a NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway – 28 (02/27/2011)

·       Fewest lead changes in a NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway – 1 (11/04/1990)

 

FEMALE COMPETITORS

·       Danica Patrick is the only female driver in the NASCAR Cup Series to compete at Phoenix Raceway. She made 11 starts at Phoenix Raceway in her career.

Date

Driver

Starting Position

Finishing Position

Driver Rating

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Danica Patrick

24

25

48.2

Monday, March 13, 2017

Danica Patrick

26

22

52.8

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Danica Patrick

16

29

48.9

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Danica Patrick

36

19

60.3

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Danica Patrick

21

16

66.4

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Danica Patrick

23

26

59.6

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Danica Patrick

32

22

60.5

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Danica Patrick

33

36

51.7

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Danica Patrick

32

33

33.2

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Danica Patrick

40

39

44.2

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Danica Patrick

37

17

58.0

AVERAGES

  

29.1

25.8

53.1

NASCAR IN ARIZONA

·       There have been 142 NASCAR national series races among four tracks in the state of Arizona.

·       The first NASCAR Cup Series race held in the state of Arizona was on April 22, 1951 and the event had 33 competitors and was won by Marshall Teague driving a 1951 Hudson.

NASCAR National Series Tracks in Arizona

Track Name

City

Cup

Xfinity

Truck

Combined

First Year

Phoenix Raceway

Avondale

56

45

33

134

1988

Arizona State Fairgrounds

Phoenix

4

0

0

4

1951

Tucson Raceway Park

Tucson

0

0

3

3

1995

Tucson Rodeo Grounds

Tucson

1

0

0

1

1955

Totals

  

61

45

36

142

  

 

 

ARIZONA IN NASCAR

·       A total of 35 different drivers in NASCAR national series history have their home state recorded as Arizona.

·       Of the 35 Arizona drivers, only two have won NASCAR national series races.

·       Michael McDowell, from Phoenix, won the 2021 Daytona 500 – his first win in the NASCAR Cup Series.

 

Race Winners from Arizona

Winners From Arizona

Cup

Xfinity

Truck

Combined

Alex Bowman

8

1

0

9

Michael McDowell

2

1

0

3

Totals

10

2

0

12
       

 

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