Five to Watch: Phoenix, fit for a Championship 4 prelude

NASCAR is set to wrap up its three-race West Coast swing this weekend with Sunday’s FanShield 500 at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR). If it feels like we were just here … we were, five races and four months ago. So much has changed since then, however, and Sunday’s show offers plenty of story lines to track – here are five of the biggest.

Opening at the close

For nearly every driver in the field, the season-ender being at a venue that has also been raced at earlier in the season is a foreign concept. Homestead-Miami Speedway has been the season finale since 2002, never seeing two races in a season. This year, however, Phoenix Raceway gets its traditional early-season look during the West Coast swing, but its fall race moved from the Round of 8 finale to the Championship 4 race itself. Drivers obviously need to focus on picking up the checkered flag Sunday – not to mention the eight-plus months left in the season – but this weekend’s race will provide an excellent set of notes for the four drivers vying for the title come November, a luxury that hadn’t previously been provided.

Playing the long game

If it seems like Toyota seems to be a little … off … to start the season, you’re not crazy. With only one driver (Daytona 500 champ Denny Hamlin) in the top 12 in points and defending champ Kyle Busch 19th in points (!), things certainly don’t appear to be shaping up to be another record-breaking season for the manufacturer, albeit just three races in. The speed doesn’t seem to be there early on in the weekends thus far, as Toyota has only had five top-10 qualifiers of 40 available spots through four qualifying sessions. But hold on a minute – there might be some logic here.

Here’s this from Christopher Bell on Friday: “We see from all of the JGR cars, they’ve all been starting in the back and it takes them a while, but eventually they get up front.”

Perhaps these cars are built for the long runs in race trim, and as Joe Gibbs Racing cleans up miscues and all Toyota cars begin to finish races consistently, the results will likely follow. Worth noting: Martin Truex Jr. will start from the rear Sunday after an engine change.

Race, race, baby?

One thing’s for sure: Sunday’s race will look a lot different than the one a few months ago. For one, the spoilers on the cars themselves look different, as Sunday’s race will feature the 2020 road-course and short-track package, which features a reduction in rear spoiler height from 8 inches to 2.75 inches as well as a reduction in front splitter overhang and alterations to the radiator pan. The changes are expected to produce a lower-downforce, racier style of competition designed to make it tougher on competitors to handle their race cars.

“A lot of slipping and sliding,” Erik Jones said Saturday after his qualifying run. “It’s going to be cooler tomorrow, but there’s a lot of downforce off the cars. Yesterday was fun. It was cool to get out there and it’s been a while since we’ve had a lot of downforce. Feels like you can drive a lot more and do more that will make a difference. It feels good – you want to have that in the race car. It will be tough, it’s not going to be easy and going to hear a lot of complaining I’m sure.”

Drivers complaining about handling = a win for fans.

Hendrick Motorsports, is that you?

Maya Angelou has a famous quote that reads, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Well, for the latter half of the last decade Hendrick Motorsports showed us it was no longer the top organization in NASCAR, instead being knocked down a few pegs by Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing and Team Penske. But now, through three races, it’s showing us it might be back in full force. Alex Bowman straight dominated the entire weekend at Auto Club Speedway, and pole-winner Chase Elliott has laid down the framework to do the same this weekend at Phoenix Raceway. Heck, even William Byron and Jimmie Johnson have been among the fastest drivers the first few weeks. It’s still early, but Hendrick is showing us its glory days might not just be in the past, and I’m inclined to believe the hype.

Cactus King, usurped?

One win in the last seven desert races for Kevin Harvick might as well be a drought by his Phoenix Raceway standards, even if the other six results were all top-nine finishes. Joe Gibbs Racing, for instance, has won four of those other six races, obviously begging the question of whether Harvick still has the stranglehold on this track that he once did. With early returns on his lap averages putting him firmly among the fastest cars heading into Sunday, along with a near-pole on Saturday, it looks like Harvick hasn’t lost a step here at all. Throw in that this package is more like what the series was running during his streak of dominance and it’s not unfathomable the No. 4 driver could pick up a record 10th victory come Sunday evening.