By David Morgan, Associate Editor
AVONDALE, Ariz. — 35 races down, one to go.
Sunday afternoon, the NASCAR Cup Series will hit the track at Phoenix Raceway for the 2024 season finale, bringing this season to a close and crowning a champion.
Heading into this year’s championship race, it will be a battle between two former champions in the Team Penske duo of Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, along with William Byron and Tyler Reddick each seeking their first Bill France Cup.
By the Numbers
What: NASCAR Cup Series Championship, Race No. 36 of 36
Where: Phoenix Raceway – Avondale, Arizona (Opened: 1964, first NASCAR Cup event was 1988)
When: Sunday, November 5
TV/Radio: NBC, 3:00 pm ET / MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Channel 90
Track Size: 1.0-mile oval
Banking: Eight to nine degrees in Turns 1-2, 10 to 11 degrees in Turns 3-4 and frontstretch dogleg
Race Length: 312 laps, 312 miles (500 km)
Stage Lengths: Stage One – 75 laps each, Stage Two – 115 laps, Final stage – 122 laps
Pit Road Speed: 45 mph
Fuel Window: 85 to 90 laps
March 2024 Race Winner: Christopher Bell – No. 20 Toyota (Started 13th, 50 laps led)
November 2023 Race Winner: Ross Chastain – No. 1 Chevrolet (Started eighth, 157 laps led)
Tale of the Tape – How the Championship 4 Stack Up:
Ryan Blaney – No. 12 Team Penske Ford
2024 Stats: Three wins (Iowa, Pocono, Martinsville), 11 top-five finishes, 17 top-10 finishes, one pole, 555 laps led, 15.6 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: 17 starts, no wins, eight top-five finishes, 12 top-10 finishes, three poles, 431 laps led, 10.9 average finish
Practice Result: First
Starting Position: 17th
How He Got Here: Wins at Iowa and Pocono secured Blaney’s spot in the Playoffs, moving cleanly through the first and second rounds of the postseason with points to spare, but in the third round, things got interesting for the No. 12 team for the second year in a row.
Blaney fell agonizingly short of winning at Homestead to secure his place in the Championship 4, setting up a win or go home scenario last weekend at Martinsville to keep his title defense alive and Blaney delivered.
Marching through the field to take the lead late in the going, Blaney was not going to be denied, scoring the walk-off win to make his triumphant return to Phoenix to try and be the first driver to win back-to-back titles since Jimmie Johnson’s run of five straight a dozen years ago.
What the Driver Says: “Ican personally say about our group, I feel like we’ve been incredibly strong all year really. I mean, it doesn’t really show how great we’ve been really as a 12 team. It’s easy for me to see it, how they are operating. I feel like it has been just unbelievable.
“This place has been pretty good to us in the past. I feel like our performance at these types of racetracks this year have been really, really strong. Hopefully that continues.
“But yeah, you never know. You never know who has what speed. We’re going to know tomorrow night kind of where everyone stacks up.
“I think our 12 group is executing really, really well. We’re controlling things we can control to the best of our ability. That’s all I can really ask for. If it’s enough, that’s great. If it’s not, you’re going to come up short.
“All I can ever ask is just give everything you got. That’s all I ever ask of my guys. When they do that, they can be winners and win championships. Hopefully we bring that attitude.”
Joey Logano – No. 22 Team Penske Ford
2024 Stats: Three wins (Nashville, Atlanta, Las Vegas), six top-five finishes, 12 top-10 finishes, three poles, 307 laps led, 17.6 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: 31 starts, three wins, eight top-five finishes, 16 top-10 finishes, two poles, 908 laps led, 13.5 average finish
Practice Result: Ninth
Starting Position: Second
How He Got Here: It took some aggressive strategy moves for Logano to earn his place in the Championship 4, first with a fuel strategy play at Nashville, where he outlasted five overtimes with enough fuel to secure his Playoff berth.
Then he came into the Playoffs and won right off the bat at Atlanta to move into the second round, where it seemed his journey would come to an end.
Logano ended the Charlotte ROVAL race on the outside looking in, but when Alex Bowman was disqualified for not meeting post-race weight, Logano had new life and made it count.
Straight out of the gate in the third round, Logano went out and won at Las Vegas to secure his place in the Championship 4 and keep his streak of making the championship race in only even numbered years.
Logano now looks to become one of only 10 drivers to have won three championships in their Cup career.
What the Driver Says: “Our advantage no doubt is that we’ve been here, right? We have done this many times, six times. You know how to prepare. You know what to do. You know what’s coming up. We know what it means to be able to lock in early, the advantage it gives us two times. We plan on this being our third.
“We feel solid about our position. I told everyone we’re going to old man them to death. That’s our goal. That’s our advantage, is that we got the experience over all of ’em. You do something more than once, you get better at it. You do it more than three times, you get better at it.
“For us, we’ve been able to kind of put together a program to where we know how to prepare and we feel comfortable in these scenarios now.”
William Byron – No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
2024 Stats: Three wins (Daytona, Austin, Martinsville), 12 top-five finishes, 20 top-10 finishes, one pole, 338 laps led, 11.2 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: 13 starts, one win (March 2023), two top-five finish, seven top-10 finishes, 186 laps led, 11.8 average finish
Practice Result: Fourth
Starting Position: Eighth
How He Got Here: Byron got off to a hot start in 2024 with three wins in the first eight races of the season, including the Daytona 500, but the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet would go on a drought for the remainder of the season.
Though he didn’t make another trip to victory lane, Byron remained consistent throughout the remainder of the regular season and into the Playoffs, making it through the first and second rounds with ease.
However, things nearly came to a head at Martinsville, where Byron was in seemingly imminent danger of falling out of the Championship 4 in those closing laps, only saved by the race manipulation undertaken by a pair of Chevrolets behind him and his closest rival for the final transfer spot, Christopher Bell, being penalized for a safety violation at the end of the race.
As a result, Byron got new life and a berth in the Championship 4 for the second year in a row, where he hopes to silence the noise around whether he is deserving of being in this position in the first place.
What the Driver Says: “I feel like our team just really has a strong bond. I think we’ve been through a lot this year, and previous years, too. Not a lot’s changed.
“I feel like we’re just continuing to build on what we’ve done and try to make it better.
“I just feel like we’ve been really resilient this year. I feel like nothing has really fazed us. We’ve never really gotten too high or too low. I’d say the first round was the rockiest part of the Playoffs for us. Once we kind of got our routine and our rhythm, I feel like we’ve been pretty status quo.
“Yeah, I just think resilient is kind of what our team’s been about.”
Tyler Reddick – No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota
2024 Stats: Three wins (Talladega, Michigan, Homestead), 12 top-five finishes, 20 top-10 finishes, three poles, 597 laps led, 13.4 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: Nine starts, two top-five finishes, three top-10 finishes, 72 laps led, 17.9 average finish
Practice Result: 21st
Starting Position: 10th
How He Got Here: Wins at Talladega and Michigan earned Reddick his place in the Playoffs and the regular season championship, which he was able to use to get through the first round unscathed, but in the second round, the headwinds were fierce, especially at the Charlotte ROVAL, where he nearly saw his season go up in smoke.
After starting on pole and winning the first stage, a run-in with team owner Denny Hamlin dropped him to 37th place in the running order after his team had to repair his battered Toyota.
Starting the final run to the finish at the ROVAL in 26th place, Reddick drove the race of his life, climbing up to 11th at the finish to secure enough points to sneak through into the Round of 8.
Two weeks later at Homestead, he made the most of his second life, pulling off a dramatic pass on the final lap to secure his place in the Championship 4 for the first time. It will not only be Reddick’s first berth in the championship race, but also the first appearance for 23XI Racing.
What the Driver Says: “I feel like at times I’ve let [the thought of being champion] creep in my head, but I’ve shut it down pretty quick because there’s still a lot to be done. I don’t need to get ahead of myself, right? I need to stay focused on the important things.
“All that stuff, can figure it out when it’s all said and done. Yeah, I mean, it’s hard not to at times, though, because I feel like I’ve said it a few times, but I got into racing because I wanted to be a NASCAR driver. I’ve always dreamed of hopefully one day having an opportunity to be a Cup champion. For me, it’s the stuff that I dreamed of as a kid growing up, why I’m so passionate about racing, why I did the things that I did.
“It is a huge moment. So close, don’t lose sight of what’s important when you’re so close to that potential outcome.”
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