AVONDALE, Ariz. — Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson mounted solid challenges in their bid to unseat Christopher Bell from his win-streak throne Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway. Neither ultimately did, but both drivers managed to find positives in a highly competitive back-and-forth finish — one of the track’s closest ever.
Hamlin placed second to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate in Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500, his No. 11 Toyota taking the checkered flag just 0.049 seconds behind Bell’s No. 20 for his best finish of the season. Another half car-length and 0.048 seconds behind Hamlin was Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in third place, equaling his best 2025 result.
Hamlin’s late-race possibilities may have been the most precarious, giving team owner Coach Joe Gibbs a queasy feeling as two team cars battled in close quarters for the victory. Hamlin held close to Bell during the deciding two-lap, green-flag sprint to the finish, and his outside-lane presence was aided by a pair of well-timed pushes from Larson. But both JGR cars drifted up the track in the final corner, and the inside groove’s advantage ultimately favored Bell at the stripe.
“It’s so hard, especially (racing) a teammate,” Hamlin said, “because I mean, we could come out of here looking like fools if we don’t win, one of the two of us, especially controlling the race on the last restart on the last lap. So it’s really, really hard. But, you know, it’s the first time I think I’ve raced Bell for a race win in that kind of scenario. So I just wish I was on the inside, not on the outside.”
Larson, who was also seeking his first victory of the season, benefited from a late-race pit stop that put him on more solid footing for the home stretch. His hopes for a bigger teammate tangle between Bell and Hamlin were never quite realized, and an avenue for him to pounce on the last lap closed.
“I’m happy with it, I guess,” said Larson, who was also a close third behind a victorious Bell at Atlanta two weeks earlier. “I think we got lucky for that final-ish caution before the final round of pit stops there because we were terrible, and then our pit crew did an amazing job there. I think I gained like five or six spots, but came out fourth and yeah, then our car was not bad there that last run. Then the final restart, I thought I did everything I could. I haven’t watched the replay back, but felt like being patient behind those guys gave ourselves the best shot to win.
“Was hoping that Bell would get into Denny some more and maybe get them choked up even more, and I could get to their inside somewhere off of (Turn) 2 or off of (Turn) 4 coming to the line. But it was a fun battle from my seat.”
Though both drivers wound up on the short end, both Hamlin and Larson pulled a measure of encouragement from their performances. Hamlin was particularly pleased with the direction of Goodyear’s tire compounds for Sunday’s race, with a baseline “prime” tire and an even softer “option” tire introducing new degrees of strategy and tire management into the competition. He also savored his first top-five result of the season, topping his previous best of sixth place at Atlanta.
“It’s progress,” Hamlin said. “We never really got outside the top 10. If we did, it was because of a bad pit stop, but I’m really encouraged by this short-track tire that we’ve got, and certainly it is a game-changer as far as the races that it puts on. Hopefully we can just keep this thing on the car for the rest of the year, if we can. I mean, it’s just, it’s fantastic and it creates great racing.”
Larson’s takeaway was also tinged with optimism, in that he felt his Hendrick Motorsports team still has room for growth — especially at a track type that’s been a trouble spot at times for the four-car organization.
“I don’t want to come across harsh,” Larson said, “but I felt like we had a lot of hope in what we brought here this weekend, and there was definitely times of the race and the weekend where I thought I was better, but relative to the field, I feel like we were a little bit worse — which is good, it’s good to be that way. It’s good to not be exactly how you want to be, because it leaves a lot of room for improvement, and there’s a lot of smart people at Hendrick Motorsports that will dig down deep and try to figure some more things out.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Christopher Bell prevailed in a dramatic side-by-side finish with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin — the second-closest finish in Phoenix Raceway history — to earn Bell his third consecutive NASCAR Cup Series victory this season, a record in the sport’s Next Gen Car era.
Bell’s No. 20 JGR Toyota went high alongside Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota as the two cars dueled it out in the final two corners of a two-lap shootout on the one-mile speedway. The 30-year-old Oklahoman claimed the historic win by a mere 0.049 seconds, marking his second straight victory in this spring race at Phoenix.
“How about that one, race fans? Oh my gosh!” a jubilant Bell shouted to the Phoenix crowd after collecting the winner’s checkered flag at the start-finish line.
“Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red [option] tires on, and you’re like, all right, what I don’t want to happen is go 20, 30 laps, get a yellow. That happened. Then we went 10 more laps, had another yellow.
“It was all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were racing really hard coming to the line. JGR ran 1-2 — how about that?”
Hamlin’s runner-up finish was disappointing in the moment but still his best of the early season in the No. 11 JGR Toyota, earning the team its first 1-2 finish of 2025. He led the white-flag lap but couldn’t fend off Bell, who drove the fastest car of the day, leading a race-high 103 of the 312 laps.
“Great job by the Sport Clips team, it got better as it went,” Hamlin said. “Pit crew did a phenomenal job keeping us in the game. We had a bad stop in the middle but made up for it in the end.
“[The end] was the first time we were able to get some clean air all day, and our car was really fast. I really wanted it to stay green because I thought that’s where we’d excel, especially on these tires. We got a good restart — the 5 [Kyle Larson] really gave me a good push on the frontstretch and down the backstretch. I had position on the 20, but I knew he was going to send it in there if he could. We just ran out of racetrack. But great finish.”
Team owner Joe Gibbs joked afterward that having his two drivers battle for the win and finish 1-2 was a huge positive, but it had him on pins and needles during the closing laps Sunday.
“It can be a tense Monday meeting if it doesn’t work out,” he said with a laugh.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson claimed third place, with Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s Chris Buescher rounding out the top five. It was the best finish of the year for Berry and came on a busy afternoon where teams had to strategize using two kinds of tires — option (red) or primary (yellow) — for only the second time in Next Gen points-racing competition.
Goodyear allotted each team two sets of the option tires and six of the primary, with the idea that the red option tires were quicker but presented a challenge due to their quicker wear. The initial response to the extra element in the race was positive.
“Everything went according to plan at Phoenix, and the option tire worked very well,” Goodyear’s NASCAR project manager Mark Keto said after the race. “It gave teams a chance to vary their strategies and maximize their effectiveness to gain track position over teams that were on the primary tires.
“Teams were also able to manage their options once they got track position and make them last longer into a run. Overall, we were very happy with the balance and strategy of the prime/option tire setup and how it added to the racing all day.”
The tire option played into the race, with RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece, for example, switching early to the red tires and ultimately advancing more than 25 positions on track to lead 34 laps. Winning crew chief Adam Stevens said after the race that a lot was learned about the tires and hoped the series would be open to using them again. NASCAR will hold a closed tire test Monday at Phoenix.
Hendrick teammates William Byron and Alex Bowman finished sixth and seventh, followed by Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch, Front Row Motorsports’ Zane Smith, and Hendrick’s Chase Elliott, rounding out the top 10. It was the third consecutive top 10 for two-time series champion Busch and a season-best finish for Smith.
“It was just crazy there at the end,” Byron said of the race strategy. “We restarted 21st and got into the top 10 pretty quickly. I feel like we probably used up a lot of tire on the reds to get those last few spots, so it was hard to get much more.
“I’m happy with it. The No. 24 Chevrolet team put together a good weekend. We learned a lot and got a solid finish, so that’s something to be proud of.”
Katherine Legge, a sports car race winner and former Indianapolis 500 starter, finished 30th on the 37-car grid in her NASCAR Cup Series debut, driving the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet. The British driver became only the eighth woman in NASCAR’s modern era (1972-present) to compete in the sport’s highest level, and the first since Danica Patrick raced in the 2018 Daytona 500.
One-mile tracks like Phoenix are not typically known for big multi-car accidents, but the “big one” in the desert occurred early in Sunday’s race. Spire Motorsports’ teammates Justin Haley and Carson Hocevar, along with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe, made heavy contact racing four-wide out of Turn 2, ultimately collecting and eliminating five other cars from the race.
Despite the early end to his chances, Haley was impressed with the softer option tires.
“I wish I would have been on the option tires the whole time and everyone else on the primaries,” Haley said. “They just make you feel like Superman. I like the tire. I honestly feel like we should go to them everywhere. They make the cars drive a lot better. I don’t know if that’s what you want, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
Bell now heads to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas high banks next week, hoping to match a milestone set by NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, who is the only driver to win four of a season’s first five races, doing so in 1992.
Byron leads the championship standings by 13 points over Bell as the NASCAR Cup Series returns to competition Sunday in the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Larson is the defending race winner.
NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Cup Series garage, confirming Christopher Bell as the winner.
A multicar crash collected several contenders at Lap 99 of Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe collided with Justin Haley exiting Turn 2 while running four-wide on the heels of a Stage 2 restart. The contact briefly sent Brisoce’s No. 19 Toyota airborne and rocketed both his car and Haley’s up the track, collecting Carson Hocevar. Their cars then ricocheted further into traffic, clogging the back straightaway.
Others involved included 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski, 2023 Xfinity Series champ Cole Custer, Riley Herbst, Todd Gilliland, Shane van Gisbergen, Noah Gragson, AJ Allmendinger and Austin Dillon.
“That’s about the biggest you can crash at Phoenix,” Briscoe said upon exiting the infield care center. “Yeah, it was a big one. On that restart, we were three, four-wide and I just climbed over the No. 7 (Justin Haley)’s right front. Unfortunate. We were able to go from the tail (of the field) up to 12th or 13th and felt good about our No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota. Got myself in a bad spot. Was probably trying to fade a little more left with the No. 77 (Carson Hocevar) on my right rear and yeah, just went over the No. 7’s right front. Unfortunate but try to learn from it and not do it again and go onto (Las) Vegas.”
Keselowski, co-owner and driver of the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford, will be saddled with a 33rd-place finish, his second DNF and third finish of 26th or worse in the opening four races of 2025.
Tough start to the season no doubt, but I love the way my cars drive and the speed we are showing in race trim. I believe we will put it altogether and be stronger in weeks to come. https://t.co/1CPl4TfOka
Gilliland, Gragson, Allmendinger and Dillon were able to continue without immediately going behind the wall for repairs. All other vehicles were taken to the garage. Those teams, which included van Gisbergen, Custer, Keselowski, Haley, Briscoe, Hocevar and Herbst, had an opportunity to repair their vehicles in a designated area under the 2025 Damaged Vehicle Policy but never returned to competition because their damages were too severe. Each of those seven drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center.
Entering this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix, the talk of the town was about the option tire that Goodyear was bringing and how it would perform.
Drivers had a 45-minute practice session to try out the option tire, as well as the primary tire. With all the cars on track at once, it provided us a great way to analyze data to see which drivers have a feel for each kind of tire.
Importantly, we should expect most drivers to end the race on the option tire as it’s the faster tire and remained faster than the primary tire even after 30-plus laps.
That means I want a driver who looks good on both sets of tires but with a bit of an emphasis on the option tire, which leads me to my best bet for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR at Phoenix Best Bet
Before the weekend, I had Kyle Larson as one of three drivers with a double-digit percent chance of winning this race, behind only Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney, who were the clear Nos. 1 and 2 by my model.
After practice, Larson’s standing only solidified in my model as he posted the best 25- and 30-lap average on the option tire. Yes, Larson did go out early in the session, which was an advantage for posting a strong speed, but his gap to Ryan Blaney was more than five percentage points faster on a 0-100 scale by my FLAGS metric and six percentage points of the next driver to start on option tires — Chase Briscoe.
That also meant Larson was at a disadvantage on the primary tire since he put those on halfway through the practice session. However, of the six cars to run on the primary tire later in the session, it was Larson who again was fastest in FLAGS, this time by six percentage points over Carson Hocevar.
Overall, Larson ran 27th in FLAGS on the primary tire, but we have to remember that 31 of the 37 cars had an advantage on the primaries by starting the practice session on them when track conditions were faster.
The fact that Larson topped his practice strategy on both tires is far more important than a mediocre qualifying run. He’s still the third-highest driver in my model and is a shade over 12% to win by my model and he actually closed the gap to Bell, who now runs behind Blaney in my model after practice.
The Bet: Kyle Larson to Win (+1000, BetMGM) | Bet to: +850
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Justin Allgaier has a complex relationship with Phoenix Raceway. The 1-mile oval is the site of his coronation as NASCAR Xfinity Series champion last fall, plus home to two of his 25 career victories. But it’s also the track that’s hosted some of his biggest heartbreaks, including a dominant performance that went south in the closing laps last spring.
Saturday, Allgaier added another finish into the latter category, with what seemed like an assured win transforming into a fifth-place result in an overtime restart in the GOVX 200. The 38-year-old veteran had led 130 of the 208 laps in the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, but his more than one-second edge down the stretch evaporated with a late caution flag that set up the fateful two-lap dash to the end, swinging his Phoenix love-hate meter into the red.
“I mean, I want to love this place,” said Allgaier, who has led 730 laps here — second only to Bristol Motor Speedway (1,174 led) on his career stat sheet. “I mean, I won a championship here. We’ve won races here. We’ve done all the right things here. I really want to love it, but it’s like golf. You’re one hole away from throwing your clubs in the water, and you hit a great approach shot to the green, and you’re like, ‘This is the greatest game in the world,’ right? Racing is the same way, and this race track is the same way. You come back here every time, thinking you’re going to do it differently or you’re going to do it better, or you’re going to do whatever, and stuff like that happens.
“So we have a running joke that, as the 7 team, we don’t make it easy. And Phoenix is the 7 car of the schedule right now for us.”
Allgaier had a willing loss-column sympathizer in Cup Series regular Alex Bowman, who led 50 laps but was on the receiving end of a squeeze play from eventual winner Aric Almirola’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota through the final set of corners. Bowman had sprung to the lead in the next-to-last lap when Allgaier washed up into Almirola on a dirty track, but his No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy was pressed into the outside retaining wall in sight of the checkered flag, and he wound up as the runner-up by 0.045 seconds in his first Xfinity Series start of the year.
Almirola called the move “warranted” in his post-race interview. Bowman’s reaction of disappointment was tempered by a level of understanding, given that a win was at stake.
“Yeah, he exited like we weren’t even there,” Bowman said of Almirola’s drift up the track. “So I get you gotta do what you gotta do to win the race. So that’s part of stock-car racing sometimes, and I think if I enter on the bottom (lane), I probably get shipped, and if I try to enter on the top (groove) just to have a chance at getting off the corner, and yeah, he just beat us. He was better than us, for sure, but just tried to sneak one away there.”
Allgaier appeared to be in cruise mode in the final stage, having put some distance on closest challengers Almirola and Bowman after the final pit cycle. When Nick Leitz’s crash on Lap 197 of a scheduled 200 slowed the field, his advantage fizzled as the field re-racked for the final restart.
Leitz walked over to Allgaier on pit road post-race to apologize for causing the yellow flag, a move that Allgaier appreciated.
“I mean, that’s a bad spot to be in, right?” Allgaier said. “Like, nobody wants to cause a caution. Nobody wants to be in that position, especially when the leader’s out front and got a two-second lead, or a second-and-a-half lead or whatever it is with three (laps) to go, but it’s just how this place is. We blew the left-rear tire in the spring last year with three laps to go or four laps to go. It’s just, the probability of a caution in that last five laps is really high, and you’ve got to know that. You hope it doesn’t happen when you’re leading. But you know, it’s how it goes.
“Like I said, I’m proud of our team. The team did everything I could ask for them to do. They brought a race car that was absolutely phenomenal. I think we showed that the middle part of the run. I don’t know that there was anybody that could hang with us.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Aric Almirola made a dramatic last-lap pass in overtime to claim the win in Saturday’s GOVX 200 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Phoenix Raceway, making door-to-door contact with Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman in the final two turns. The 0.045-second margin of victory was the second-closest finish in the track’s history.
Almirola led 25 laps on the afternoon, but his last-lap move to the checkered flag was the only one he led in the final 50 laps of the 208-lap event. His No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota emerged from a four-wide battle for the lead on the final restart with two laps remaining, then finally overtook Bowman less than 200 feet from the finish line.
It was the eighth career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory for the 40-year-old Tampa, Florida native, who has been racing part-time for JGR after retiring from full-time NASCAR Cup Series competition two years ago.
“I just knew I needed to get from there to here first,” Almirola said, standing by his car at the start-finish line. “I knew I was going to use him up a little bit, but was trying to win the race. I feel like it was warranted. I didn’t feel like I did anything overly egregious. I just throttled up, and it was a drag race to the start-finish line.”
Bowman, who drives the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, was making his first Xfinity start of the year for the team. He started on the pole, led the first 70 laps of the race, and won the opening stage. After the race, he expressed frustration over the contact between his Chevrolet and Almirola’s Toyota.
“I would have hoped he would have given me a lane on exit,” said Bowman, an Arizona native. “He just exited like I wasn’t there. He was better than us for sure, but I was just trying to capitalize on that restart and try to win the race. I got shoved into the fence, and the race car is destroyed. Bummer for that, but hats off to the HendrickCars.com crew.”
Almirola’s teammate Brandon Jones finished third, followed by owner-driver Ryan Sieg and reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier, whose No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet led a race-best 130 laps and was out front on that final overtime restart.
Allgaier, who won the second stage, was understandably disappointed in both the restart and race outcome.
He got a good jump to the green flag on the restart but was quickly swallowed up in the four-wide battle out front. The result was particularly gut-wrenching considering he was also leading late in the track’s spring race last year when he had a tire problem with only five laps remaining and instead suffered a DNF.
“I thought the 19 [Almirola] was pretty good at the end of the run, and we were pushing pace when the caution came out,” Allgaier said. “I kind of knew we were a sitting duck. They blew all the marbles off the top [of the track] right in front of us leaders, and we just picked up a ton of trash on our tires.
“Just got into [Turn] 1 and had no grip,” he said of the restart. “I’m just sad about the finish for our Brandt Chevrolet. I thought it was really, really good. I thought we had the car to beat there.
“This one is going to hurt. I feel like the last three laps of this place have hated me over the last couple years. Even though we won a championship [here] last fall, it seems like no matter what, the last few laps haven’t been our deal. We’ll go back to the drawing board. Nothing to hang our heads about.”
In last year’s Phoenix spring race, Allgaier had a comfortable lead with five laps to go before a flat left-rear tire caused the defending Xfinity Series champion to snap around quickly, spinning hard into the Turn 1 wall.
JGR rookie Taylor Gray, Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer, Kaulig Racing rookie Christian Eckes, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love, and Big Machine Racing rookie Nick Sanchez rounded out the top 10.
A trio of race frontrunners was taken out on Lap 63 when Daytona season opener winner Austin Hill said he misjudged the lower wall and careened back up the racetrack, collecting Haas driver Sheldon Creed and Sam Hunt Racing’s Dean Thompson.
“I just messed up and misjudged the inside wall, and that might be the dumbest move that ever happened to me in racing,” Hill, a Richard Childress Racing driver, said. “I feel bad for those guys. It was 100% my fault. Just a misjudgment on my part.”
The accident was not only a big impact on the wall for Hill but also had an impact on the championship standings, dropping him to fourth place heading into Las Vegas Motor Speedway next week.
Love holds a two-point edge over Allgaier atop the standings.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to competition next Saturday in the LiUNA! at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET on The CW, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). John Hunter Nemechek is the defending race winner.
NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Xfinity Series garage, confirming Aric Almirola as the race winner. The Nos. 18 and 20 cars were found with one lugnut not secure, which will result in a monetary fine.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell — the defending Phoenix spring race winner — is attempting to make history this weekend by claiming a third consecutive win early in the season. It would be the 29th time a driver has done that in the NASCAR Cup Series’ modern era (post-1972) although no driver has ever won three straight with the Next Gen car that debuted in 2022.
Most recently among current full-time drivers, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch earned three straight trophies in 2015. Brad Keselowski and Busch won three races in a row in 2018. Larson is the last to accomplish the feat — doing it twice in his 2021 championship-winning season. Eleven times the driver who has won three straight has gone on to win the title that same year.
Bell smiled and said the consecutive wins would be nice, but it’s not top of mind for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Phoenix Raceway.
“That would be something I’d probably think about afterwards, but right now it just feels like a normal week, a week where we have a great opportunity because this is a great track for me and I’m excited about the opportunity, not thinking about three in a row,” Bell said, acknowledging he’s currently on a solid streak of success with wins at Atlanta and Circuit of The Americas in the last two weeks.
“Certainly, the confidence is high. And it’s just very refreshing to know we’ve improved our weaknesses. It’s tough, because the last part of the schedule, the two speedways and then the road course, literally none of that translates into what we’ll be doing here in Phoenix. That being said, this is a strength for us and we know we should be competitive if we do our jobs right.”
With those three races steeped in unpredictability behind us, Bell & Co. head into a more traditional span of the schedule, starting Sunday at Phoenix’s mile. Five more ovals — a mix of intermediate-sized venues and short tracks — follow Phoenix, and Bell’s prospects during that stretch seem high.
He’s already two-thirds of the way toward equaling his three-win total from last season.
“I don’t think there’s a place we go to where we shouldn’t be competitive,” said No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens. “Certainly, the Atlanta win, just by virtue of it being a speedway, is a little bit unexpected and the manner that it happened was probably even more unexpected. All we can do is put ourselves in position, and we did that plenty of times last year and it just didn’t work out as often as we’d like. So far this year, we’ve had three races and put ourselves in position three times, and it’s worked out twice. I don’t think we’re going to continue that batting average all year, but it’s just up to us to do everything we can to put ourselves in that spot.”
Track: Phoenix Raceway Location: Avondale, Arizona Track length: 1 mile When: Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET Where to tune in: FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 312 laps | 312 miles Stages: 60 | 185 | 312 Defending winner:Christopher Bell, March 2024 Starting lineup:William Byron wins Busch Light Pole
Phoenix kicks off stretch of traditional ovals on 2025 schedule
After two superspeedway-style drafting tracks and a road course opened the NASCAR Cup Series season, Phoenix Raceway signals the first traditional stock-car oval of 2025.
Some drivers have already built strong momentum across the starting stanza, much like Daytona 500 winner and current points leader William Byron as well as Christopher Bell, who enters on a two-race winning streak. Others find themselves on uneasy footing after the tight pack racing associated with Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, plus the twists and turns of Circuit of The Americas one week ago. Brad Keselowski, the 2012 series champion, and Ty Gibbs find themselves in the latter bucket, sitting 26th and 36th in points, respectively.
Phoenix provides a more stable, perhaps more realistic representation of what each driver and team can expect to produce over the remaining 23 races of the regular season. Its 1-mile layout is still unique in its own right — a high-banked dogleg that offers an apron route to Turn 1; flat, sweeping corners in Turns 1 and 2 that lead to a short backstretch before the higher banks of Turns 3 and 4. But the drivers’ ability to navigate each section of the oval while moderating the throttle and brake is far more comparable to the standard task they’ll face in 15 of the next 23 points-paying events.
“This will be a good measure to see, did we work hard enough over the offseason or did everyone else catch us?” defending champion Joey Logano said Friday, returning as the most recent race winner and Cup champion. “This would be a good way of knowing that.”
Logano backed up his most recent performance by qualifying second for Sunday’s race. In fact, three of the 2024 Championship 4 — polesitter Byron, Logano and Tyler Reddick — qualified inside the top nine, highlighting the strength each team brings back to 2025. The lone exception was Ryan Blaney, who rolls off 12th Sunday afternoon.
But consider the fresher faces atop Saturday’s leaderboard: The Spire Motorsports trio of Carson Hocevar, Michael McDowell and Justin Haley placed all three of their Chevrolets inside the top eight, as did fourth-place qualifier Josh Berry from Wood Brothers Racing and fifth-place Erik Jones from Legacy Motor Club. A fast lap Saturday doesn’t guarantee they’ll be at the front of the field when the checkered flag waves Sunday, but it does indicate their offseason efforts may result in improved performance in the new year. We’ll know for sure late Sunday afternoon.
From atop the pit box…
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Sunday’s event in the desert marks just the third Cup Series race with a choice in Goodyear tire compounds — a baseline “prime” tire and then “option” rubber that provides more short-term speed and grip but with more rapid wear. It’s a relatively new variable that most crew chiefs have welcomed as another strategy alternative in their toolbox.
“Absolutely. Anything they can give us to let me make decisions on the pit box and try to change up the outcome,” Matt Swiderski, crew chief for Daniel Suárez’s No. 99 Trackhouse Chevrolet, told NASCAR.com. “You know, if you’re having an OK day, you get to roll the dice, try to do something different. I enjoy those options.”
Swiderski knows the potential benefits quite well. The last time that Cup Series teams had option tires at their disposal last August at Richmond Raceway, Swiderski gambled by zigging when other teams zagged, giving the No. 99 team a massive shift of fortunes and ultimately a top-10 result.
Phoenix Raceway, a 1-mile dogleg oval with short-track characteristics, is the largest venue to date where the Goodyear option tires have been in stock; the others were Richmond (0.75 miles) and North Wilkesboro Speedway (0.625 miles) for the non-points NASCAR All-Star Race. For Sunday, teams are allotted seven sets of prime tires (six race sets, plus a carry-over from qualifying) with traditional yellow sidewall lettering, plus two sets of option tires with distinctive red-letter sidewall markings.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
How each tire type performs and how teams react throughout 312 laps stand out as great unknowns.
“At Richmond, it seemed like they definitely took off quicker and probably got to about the same spot, maybe a tiny bit slower on the back end, but they were still preferred — especially on the shorter run,” Adam Stevens, crew chief for Christopher Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, told NASCAR.com.
How caution periods fall will likely dictate the rest of the crew chiefs’ strategies, and if teams hold a set of red-letter Goodyear tires for the end — in case a yellow flag sets up a sprint to the finish.
“I mean, if they’re quicker, I don’t see how a competitive car would put them on before the final stage,” Stevens said. “If they’re not, if they’re only quicker for a short time, then maybe so. But we’re all at the mercy of when the caution is going to come at this point, with only two of them to race. If you bolt them on, you get a caution 20 laps later, they’re gonna come off. So it’s just, you’re at the mercy of the caution, which, from a competitor standpoint isn’t a great situation to be in because the stakes are so high.”
Goodyear representatives said no other races are currently planned for a tire-choice format, but the trend toward finding a combination with more progressive wear continues. For now, the strategy option presents a welcome change of pace.
“I don’t know that it’s something I’d want to see every week, and maybe not at a championship race like that, but I think it’d be something interesting to do a few times a year, just to give us some options and let the crew chiefs play a little bit and come up with some different strategies,” Swiderski said. “So I think if we did it too often, did it every week, we’d get into rhythms and patterns, and we’d all do the same thing and defeat the purpose of it. But every once in a while kind of gives us a chance to change it up.”
Team Penske will be the trio to beat Sunday. Since the debut of the Next Gen car in the 2022 season, no driver has led more laps at Phoenix than reigning (and three-time) Cup champ Joey Logano, who’s paced the field for a combined 298 laps in those six races. Next in line? His teammate at Team Penske, Ryan Blaney. The duo has won each of the last three Cup titles, with Logano claiming the 2022 and 2024 titles and Blaney in 2023, all at Phoenix in the November finale. Logano starts second Sunday, and Blaney 12th. Blaney has still yet to find Victory Lane at Phoenix, but that could change in a hurry.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
ROSS CHASTAIN. The Trackhouse Racing driver won the season finale in 2023 at Phoenix, preventing Blaney from winning the race but not the championship. Chastain is averaging a 9.2 finish in his last six Phoenix starts, with three top fives in that span. He finished runner-up to Chase Briscoe in the spring Phoenix event in 2022 and may be in contention to score a second Arizona win on Sunday.
Fantasy update
While William Byron scored the pole for Sunday’s race at Phoenix, Spire Motorsports stood out, putting all three of its entries inside the top eight of the starting lineup for the first time in team history. Carson Hocevar qualified third while teammates Michael McDowell and Justin Haley qualified seventh and eighth, respectively. Striking while the iron is hot is important, so I’ve added Hocevar to my lineup and am also using the No. 77 car as my 36 for 36 pick. Joey Logano has entered my lineup, winning four previous Phoenix races.
Lineup: Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 | Read more
• Chastain, Elliott connect after COTA: Chastain apologizes for ‘big error’ that wiped out Elliott in Turn 1 move | Read more
• ‘Confidence is high’ for Bell: No. 20 JGR driver eyes third straight Cup win Sunday| Read more
• Katherine Legge set for Cup Series debut: Veteran open-wheel, IMSA racer to become first woman in Cup since 2018 | Watch video
• Cindric penalized after COTA: Team Penske driver docked 50 points, fined after on-track incident | Read more
• Briscoe, No. 19 team win appeal: Chase Briscoe, JGR see Daytona penalty overturned | Read more
• Cindric, Briscoe ride midweek points swings: Chase Briscoe rockets up standings while Cindric sinks | Read more
• No. 71 Spire team penalized at Phoenix: McDowell’s car fails inspection twice, crew member ejected | Read more
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind the tape on every Cup race at Phoenix | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: Some pristine paint for the Phoenix fans | View gallery
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Chase Briscoe had reason to celebrate this week when penalties against his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team from the season-opening Daytona 500 were overturned on appeal, moving him from last place in the NASCAR Cup Series to a more respectable 15th.
After receiving such a rejuvenating boost, he treated himself. Just don’t tell his diet-conscious crew chief, James Small.
“James is gonna kill me, but I had a chocolate dessert,” Briscoe said, grinning as he noted that the sweet treat of choice was lava cake with ice cream.
The appeal ruling was the figurative and possibly literal icing on the top of an eventful Wednesday in the Cup Series standings as the field tunes up for this Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Phoenix Raceway. Briscoe went from negative territory back onto the plus side after 100 points were restored to his season-long tally, and he’ll continue to build bonds with Small, whose four-race suspension was also reversed.
On the other end of the penalty pendulum, Austin Cindric tumbled down the standings, docked 50 points with a $50,000 fine for initiating contact with Ty Dillon’s car during Stage 1 of last weekend’s Cup race at Circuit of The Americas. The Team Penske driver avoided a one-race suspension, a punishment that had been levied against other drivers in past incidents for similar hook-style bumps in retaliation. Competition officials indicated in the most recent episode of “Hauler Talk” that the altercations are considered on a case-by-case basis with multiple factors at play.
Cindric staggered from 11th to 35th in the Cup Series standings — a low perch that he said he’ll have to work hard to offset. He added that “it’s not up to me to decide what penalties are or aren’t” for those situations, admitting that his reaction was heated after his No. 2 Ford was forced into a run-off area on the Texas road course by Dillon’s No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.
“I think I was faced with adversity,” Cindric said. “I’ve been faced with a lot of adversity to start the season and a lot of emotions, and obviously handled them poorly, and would think that given that situation again, I’d handle myself better.”
One person who anticipated Cindric to be sidelined for Sunday’s race was Dillon, who made a nod toward previous suspensions handed to Chase Elliott (2023, Charlotte) and Bubba Wallace (2022, Las Vegas) for similar crashes.
“I was expecting a one-race suspension. I’m glad they did something, though,” Dillon said. “I think 50 points and $50,000 is probably enough to make him think about doing something like that again. But I think a one-race suspension is what most of us expected. They set a standard a couple years ago.”
While Cindric was dropping in the Cup Series pecking order after three races this season, Briscoe was on his way back up, saying, “Biggest points day of my career! We’re back!” in a social-media post. The 30-year-old driver in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing enters this weekend with far less pressure at Phoenix, the site of his first Cup Series win in 2022.
“It’s crazy the amount of relief I felt, honestly, just I felt like a new man the rest of the week,” Briscoe said. “So yeah, it’s been nice. Not that our season was over, but it kind of felt that way to a certain extent. I mean, we could have still won a race, right, and made the playoffs, but you’re going to be at such a deficit the whole season. So yeah, I definitely feel like I got a new life in a sense, just because it stings when it’s the first race, and you’re kind of buried the whole season. But now I feel like I’m back on a level playing field.”
Briscoe said Wednesday’s hearing was his first time participating in the appeals process, and that his No. 19 team argued that an assembly defect — and not an unapproved modification — caused the spoiler of his pole-winning Daytona 500 car to be out of compliance. Side note: Briscoe shared the front row of the Cup Series season opener with Cindric, his former teammate as the two worked up through the Craftsman Truck Series ranks.
Briscoe said he appreciated the National Motorsports Appeals Panel took the time to hear and consider JGR’s case, and that he was an invested and interested observer in the process.
“You know, there could be no appeal at all, right, but at least we had the opportunity to go and present our case,” Briscoe said. “And I think that when you see it get overturned, typically the evidence is there, right? And for us, we brought 20-something-plus spoilers and spoiler bases in, and they all had all these different things that were messed up with them. So when you looked at the evidence, it was clear that it wasn’t an issue of something we did. It was literally just assembly, and there (were) issues with the building process of the spoilers themselves.
“So yeah, I definitely think that it was a surprise, I think to all of us, that it got completely thrown out just because you don’t normally see it, but when you looked at the evidence, I went in there not knowing anything. Like, I didn’t know what we really were in trouble for, so I felt like I was just as much on the appeals board as they were, and when I was watching the evidence at both sides, I was like, ‘man, how do we not win this? Like, it just is common sense.’ So, yeah, I was glad that, like I said, we had the opportunity to do it, and obviously glad that with the evidence that it was able to get overturned.”
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
