From the moment her racing career began at 15 years old, Caity Miller has never been afraid to mix it up with the established veterans.
Miller held her own in the NASCAR Modified division at both Idaho’s Meridian Speedway and Motorplex at the Mill throughout 2024, earning a victory at each track. The consistency and resolve Miller displayed at both facilities were major catalysts toward her receiving the prestigious Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award.
Named after Hall of Famer Wendell Scott, who became the first African-American to win a NASCAR Cup Series event in 1963, the award is presented to a driver based on their on-track performance in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series along with other qualities like sportsmanship and community service.
Miller has done everything possible to make a name for herself amongst the men and women in the industry. Being able to earn an accomplishment like the Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award is something Miller credits to the environment that has allowed her to thrive behind the wheel.
“It’s a huge accomplishment and definitely an honor,” Miller said. “I’m kind of in shock that I received a prestigious award like this. To be amongst the group of drivers who have won this award in the past is super cool, and I’m super proud of my team for helping me get to this point in racing.”
The love Miller possesses for racing originated through several conversations she had with Bob Cook, a veteran racer who she considers to be her second dad.
Since no one else in her family had any prior racing experience, Miller confided in Cook about her interest in pursuing motorsports as a potential career. Cook was eager to assist Miller with her burgeoning passion and took her to numerous Late Model races around the West Coast to see if she was willing to dedicate herself to such a rigorous sport.
Every trip to the race track only further invigorated Miller, who soon found herself in her first car with the aid of Cook and his family. Both sides understood finding success would be a methodical process, but Miller said Cook was constantly in her ear providing encouraging advice on how to be simultaneously mature and fearless.
“Don’t be intimidated by the boys,” Miller said. “[Bob] said there are going to be times when you want to be angry and do stupid things, but that you need to be level-headed. Race cars always wreck, but he reminded me that’s what the weekdays are for. You can always fix your car during a weekday and get it ready for the weekend.
“He taught me a lot about patience, sportsmanship and hard work.”
A first-generation racer, Caity Miller’s fearless mindset helped her quickly find a comfort zone behind the wheel. (Photo: Richard Ragsdale Photography)
Miller quickly developed an intrepid mindset in Legends cars on the West Coast. There were many long days and nights during her first years in the discipline, but she never backed down from adversity and continued to improve with every race.
Miller’s ability to race aggressively but fairly earned her the respect of other drivers. One of them, Chance Overholt, recalled a particular night when Miller was determined to fend him off in front of her home crowd.
“I fought tooth and nail racing hard with [Miller] for fourth in the main event, and we had close to 30 cars,” Overholt said. “She just raced her butt off. I remember going up to her after the race, and she thought I was going to chew her out for something. I told her how impressed I was with how good, clean and hard she raced.”
This post-race conversation between Miller and Overholt ended up spawning a friendship. He took Miller under his wing and is now responsible for building the cars she brings to the track each weekend.
It was Overholt who helped convince Miller to sell her Legend car so they could build a new Modified. Miller knew it was time to take the next step in her career, but she was initially unsure if her success in Legends would carry over into the heavier Modified equipment.
Now in her third year of Modified competition, Miller believes she has found her comfort zone in the discipline with a handful of victories on her resume. Her transition period into Modifieds was not prolonged, which she credits to the Legends cars providing her valuable lessons when it comes to setups and race craft.
Caity Miller’s consistency carried over from Legends into Modifieds, where she has recorded wins at Meridian Speedway and the Motorplex at the Mill. (Photo: Richard Ragsdale Photography)
“I would consider Modified driving to not be as challenging as Legends car driving,” Miller said. “Legends cars are one of the hardest cars to drive with their shorter wheelbase. Having over 10 years of experience in Legends cars taught me a lot about car control, so [that helped me] when I transitioned over to Modifieds.
“It’s challenging in its own way, but it’s fun.”
Finding cohesion across Legends and Modifieds has validated Miller’s belief in herself to accomplish anything in motorsports despite enduring the plenty of obstacles that included losing her parents at a young age.
Miller is grateful for those who have supported her racing endeavors; people like Cook, Overholt and her brother Carl, who became Miller’s legal guardian when she was 13. Their guidance has enabled Miller to build confidence with herself and adopt a hands-on approach to motorsports like many of her male contemporaries.
Without the influence of Wendell Scott, Miller feels the path to sustainability in racing for herself and other minorities would not be as easy. There are still superfluous critiques Miller deals with on the regular, but she said it’s up to people like herself to show women firmly belong in the motorsports industry.
“As a female driver myself, I’ve had comments made where people have said girls shouldn’t be racing in this sport, or that I did good for a girl,” Miller said. “I hate that, because I don’t want to be seen as a girl; I want to be seen as another driver. [Wendell Scott] has paved the way and opened doors for anyone to do this sport.”
Having been around Miller for years, Overholt knows his long-time friend is never content with settling. The competitive edge is always prevalent with Miller every time she and Overholt are at the track, which is a quality he believes will set her up for success long into the future.
Overholt hopes the Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award opens opportunities for Miller to potentially progress in her career, but he said funding will dictate where she ends up. No matter her trajectory, Overholt envisions Miller maintaining her status as a positive role model for the next generation of female drivers.
“A trailblazer inspires people,” Overholt said. “I know there are a lot of young girls, especially around Meridian Speedway, that really look up to Caity. Even when she travels to Washington to race, it’s really cool to see the young girls flock to her. They think her race car is pretty, but it’s great for these kids to have someone they strive to be one day.”
Caity Miller’s on-track success has garnered her admiration from fans and drivers alike (Photo: Tyler’s Takes)
The primary pieces of advice Miller wishes to impart onto upcoming competitors is to show compassion and great work ethic. For Miller, any information that can be absorbed will only be beneficial in the long term, but being present to assist drivers in need garners respect and trust in the garage area.
Joining drivers like Nick Sanchez, Rajah Caruth and Lanie Buice as a Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award winner is an incredible experience for Miller. She never imagined years of strenuous work would get recognized on a national level, but she is appreciative of the journey and the people who helped her along the way.
Whether she keeps racing at Meridian and the Mill or branches out into other disciplines, Miller intends to carry on Wendell Scott’s legacy while simultaneously carving out her own as a modern trailblazer.
“I want to win more races, but also have fun with the people I race with and my crew,” Miller said. “I want to enjoy spending our weekends at the race track with my friends and family. Hopefully I can keep showing that we can hang with the boys out there.”
Throughout the 2024 NASCAR season, Ken Martin, director of historical content for the sanctioning body, will offer his suggestions on which historical races fans should watch from the NASCAR Classics library in preparation for each upcoming race weekend.
Martin has worked exclusively for NASCAR since 2008 but has been involved with the sport since 1982, overseeing various projects. He has worked in the broadcast booth for hundreds of races, assisting the broadcast team with different tasks. This includes calculating the “points as they run” for the historic 1992 finale, the Hooters 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The following suggestions are Ken’s picks to watch before this Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at the Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
Oct. 24, 2004, will be a day forever remembered as one of the darkest days in NASCAR history.
An aircraft owned by Hendrick Motorsports crashed in Virginia, killing all ten passengers on board. Those who lost their lives included Rick Hendrick’s son Ricky, team president John Hendrick and his two daughters, Jennifer and Kimberly, engine builder Randy Dorton, general manager Jeff Turner, DuPont’s Joe Jackson and the pilot of the plane, Scott Lathram.
They were on the way to Martinsville Speedway to watch the race, but never made it to the track. Those at the track became aware of the situation as Jimmie Johnson won the race but did not go to Victory Lane because of the tragedy.
Fast forward to 2014 and the Cup Series arrived back at Martinsville on Oct. 24, 10 years to the day that the tragedy occurred.
Hendrick Motorsports was the most dominant team at the track since 2003, as Jeff Gordon won five races at the track and Johnson grabbed eight of his own. It seemed more than fitting if they could pull off another victory during a somber weekend for the organization, with those 10 who lost their lives fresh on everyone’s minds.
The race also marked the first race of the final round of the playoffs, with a trip to Homestead to race for the championship on the line if any of the eight remaining playoff drivers could pull off a victory.
These drivers included Gordon, Ryan Newman, Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick.
Polesitter Jamie McMurray jumped out to an early lead and led the majority of the first 85 laps before Gordon found his way to the front.
He paced the field for the next 83 laps before the caution flag flew for a two-car incident.
As the race progressed, it seemed like Gordon had the fastest car but a handful of drivers also had strong cars capable of winning, including Logano, Hamlin, Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Tony Stewart stayed out on the track as Gordon and Earnhardt Jr. came into the pits for tires under a red flag with 10 laps left.
Earnhardt Jr. powered his way to the front to lead the final four laps, holding off Gordon as the two Hendrick drivers delivered an emotional one-two finish for the organization. It was his first win at the track.
An emotional Earnhardt Jr. noted the tragedy in Victory Lane, talking about how he knows firsthand how hard times like those can be for a grieving family.
Newman, Stewart and Logano rounded out the remainder of the top five.
Martinsville marked the first race of the final round of the playoffs, as they all eyed the glory of being able to race for a championship at Homestead.
Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Joey Logano were the eight drivers remaining. Those drivers have all since been named as one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers in 2023 during NASCAR’s 75th Anniversary season, making the race look even more iconic in retrospect.
The entire season seemed to belong to Logano and continued to go his way as the months progressed. He kicked off the season with a victory in the Daytona 500, while also winning at Watkins Glen and Bristol before the playoffs started.
A few solid runs over the first handful of playoff races kept Logano moving on to the next round but he really ignited when the series arrived at Charlotte.
He won the race at Charlotte and followed that up with wins at Kansas and Talladega before putting his No. 22 car on the pole at Martinsville.
His victory at Kansas came despite some late-race drama on the track between Matt Kenseth and himself, as Kenseth later claimed that it cost him a shot at racing for the championship.
Logano continued with his foot on the pedal at Martinsville, leading 207 laps before Kenseth exacted his revenge. Kenseth plowed into Logano’s car heading into the turn, as Logano was still leading the race, destroying both of their cars in the process. This would eventually lead to a 37th-place finish for Logano and a two-race suspension for Kenseth.
This set up a late-race battle for the win, which was slowed by a handful of caution flags. The last of which set up a shootout for the win.
Gordon, who had already announced that the 2015 season would be the last of his legendary career, held off a hard-charging Jamie McMurray to capture his 93rd career victory and punch his ticket to race for a fifth Cup Series title at Homestead.
He made his NASCAR national series debut in 2011 in the Craftsman Truck Series, making five starts before going full-time for Bobby Dotter in 2012.
Chastain showed flashes of promise, including a third-place finish at Bristol and a seventh at Martinsville. This helped him land a part-time schedule with Brad Keselowski Racing for the 2013 season.
He made 14 starts and finished 10th or better in half of them, showing even more signs that the 20-year-old driver had a bright future if the stars could just simply align for the Alva, Florida driver.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. He landed a full-time ride for 2015 in the Xfinity Series for JD Motorsports and kept trucking away for the team through the 2017 season.
That same season he made his Cup Series debut for Jay Robinson, finishing an impressive 20th for the team.
He got his big break the following season, getting a chance to drive the No. 42 car for Chip Ganassi Racing in the Xfinity Series. He sat on the pole and led 90 laps at Darlington in his first start for the team but contact with Kevin Harvick eventually led to a 25th-place finish.
Two weeks later he won at Las Vegas, showing the world that despite the equipment he had up to that point in his career, he could be a winning driver.
Fast forward through full-time rides with Jay Robinson, Kaulig Racing and a few starts with Spire Motorsports and Roush Fenway Racing, Chastain had seemingly seen it all.
2021 finally seemed to be the year where everything aligned for Chastain as he captured a full-time ride with Ganassi for the Cup Series campaign.
He finished 20th in points but three top-five finishes and eight top-10s built momentum for the following season. That was until it happened again.
Ganassi shut down his team and sold the assets to the new Justin Marks and Pitbull partnership, dubbed Trackhouse Racing.
Chastain was eventually hired to drive their No. 1 car but the now 29-year-old driver was backed into another situation where he couldn’t build off of a previous season and was starting with a fresh slate.
Somehow, it all seemed to click off the bat for the new team and driver.
After two struggling efforts at Daytona and Auto Club Speedway, Chastain finished third at Las Vegas and put together back-to-back second-place finishes the next two weeks at Phoenix and Atlanta. The following race at COTA saw Chastain capture the first victory of his Cup Series career, seemingly locking himself into the playoffs for the first time as well.
The playoffs saw Chastain make it through the first and second rounds, leaving him as one of the eight remaining drivers vying for a title at the end of the season in Phoenix.
The first two races of the round couldn’t have gone much better for Chastain, as he finished second yet again at Las Vegas and at Homestead.
He arrived at Martinsville with his season on the line, needing a victory or enough points to move himself into position to race for the title and achieve all of his dreams.
As his chances of moving on looked slim to none as the final laps passed by, Chastain air-mailed his car into the turn, riding the wall all the way past the start/finish line. He passed Denny Hamlin in the process, leaving him with a fourth-place finish and knocking Hamlin out of the playoffs while putting himself in with one of the most clutch moments in NASCAR history.
The move, hailed the “Hail Melon” had the entire NASCAR community buzzing, as Chastain heroically put himself alongside Martinsville race winner Christopher Bell, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott in the Final 4.
Setting a standard in a sport that competes for 38 weeks a year is difficult. Doing so for 418 weeks over 11 years? A Herculean task.
And yet for over a decade, the No. 4 team at Stewart-Haas Racing has done exactly that. That dynasty will officially come to an end, however, when the checkered flag waves on Nov. 10 at Phoenix Raceway in the finale of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.
The prequel of this final chapter was written a year ago when 2014 champion Kevin Harvick retired from full-time competition. His dominating presence behind the wheel of those machines overseen by Rodney Childers, prepared by car chief Robert “Cheddar” Smith and watched closely by shop foreman Dale Fischlein propelled the No. 4 car into NASCAR lore like no other from the mid-2010s through Harvick’s swan-song season.
Today, the four-car team of Stewart-Haas Racing has only days left before it shutters, the team reorganizing in 2025 as Haas Factory Team to field one Cup car and its two Xfinity Series competitors. The reality for Childers set in some time ago, but some days that reality is more apparent than others.
“When it was kind of time to start cleaning out my office,” Childers told NASCAR.com, “that was kind of one of those days that you really start thinking about all the stuff that we’ve done here and the races that we’ve won. … And taking stuff home … makes you think about all of it.”
Childers is taking those items home in bits at a time “instead of taking a U-Haul home.” At this point, he’d probably need the largest truck they offer anyway. Together, he, Harvick and Co. combined to win 37 races in their 10 years together before Josh Berry hopped into the car for the 2024 campaign.
With the final two races for Stewart-Haas Racing directly in front of the windshield, here’s a look back at what made the No. 4 team so dominant — so feared — in its tenure:
STARTING STRONG
This story begins in the fall of 2013 before the green flag ever waved over the No. 4 car in a points-paying competition.
Childers was in the midst of ending his time at Michael Waltrip Racing, where he’d served as crew chief for five seasons with Waltrip, David Reutimann, Mark Martin and Brian Vickers. His cars over the years — from scoring wins with Reutimann and Vickers at MWR to his prior days with Scott Riggs and Elliott Sadler at Evernham Motorsports — were enough to catch Harvick’s attention. Selected to lead the No. 4 team beginning with the 2014 season, Childers was tasked with piecing together what that group needed to look like.
“Kevin believing in me and giving me a chance was key number one,” Childers said. “The rest was putting together the whole puzzle of getting the right shop foreman and the right car chief and the right people. And I still don’t even know how I did all that.
“I was so blessed to come across such good people, and most of them are still with us 11 years later. And for me, it was life-changing, right? I mean, I had three wins as a Cup crew chief, and now 40 plus the All-Star Race and (34) poles now and all these things that we didn’t have before. So all of us that have been on the 4 car this whole time have been extremely blessed and fortunate to be in this environment, to work with somebody like Kevin and to do things that we did.”
And so preparations began for a Dec. 8, 2013, test at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Multiple teams hit the 1.5-mile oval ready to learn. The No. 4 team, with SHR’s then-alliance with Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet, was ready to dominate.
“Going to this first test, we’re going to treat it like we’re going to win a championship,” Childers recalled. “This isn’t just a test car. This isn’t just a test engine. This isn’t just a test gear. This isn’t a test transmission. Like, I want the best stuff that we possibly have in this building. I want the best engine that we can possibly put in it from Hendrick; the best gear, the best transmission, the best hubs, the best bearings, the best oils. Like, we didn’t just treat it like a test. That was the start of setting that example of this is how we’re going to operate.”
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
The results were immediate. The car, previously used by the No. 39 team with driver Ryan Newman and stripped, rebuilt and rebuffed by the new No. 4 group, was an immediate rocket.
“I think it really set the tone as to, we didn’t want to beat you. We wanted to beat you badly,” Harvick told NASCAR.com. “We all had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder as to the things that we thought we were capable of doing, and everybody wanted to go prove that.”
With Daytona only two months away, it was critical for the team to understand the opportunities at hand, what the realistic ceiling for the team could be and the effort needed to achieve those lofty goals.
“It wasn’t just Stewart-Haas at that particular time that wanted this all to work,” Harvick said. “It was also Rick Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports. And I also had to sit down and understand what the alliance was and what we had the capability of using from the resources at HMS, and what we could do with that alliance. And it was something that I felt was pretty important to have in the puzzle to win a championship.”
If you ask Cheddar Smith, that immediate success was a credit to Childers.
“That’s the value that Rodney really brought to the table, right?” Smith said “Like, I can lead the people and we can build the team together. And I can rally the troops and get it done. But Rodney came out of the box at the end of ’13 and knew exactly how he wanted his cars built. He knew exactly what he wanted optimized on the cars straight out of the gate. We had a ton of speed, and it was really special.”
SETTING THE STANDARD
Harvick winning at Phoenix in just his second start with SHR is probably the least shocking part of this story. But despite that instant berth into the newly rebranded elimination-style NASCAR Playoffs, the results didn’t immediately scream “success.”
In their first seven races together, Harvick and the No. 4 team finished 36th or worse four times, twice resulting in DNFs with just two top 10s despite a combined 277 laps led.
“We had a lot of failures and a lot of things go wrong — new team blues,” Harvick said. “But the thing that we never, ever struggled with was how fast we could run. And that was always the piece that we would come back (to). We’d lose a race or have something go wrong or whatever the case was, and the meetings would always end with, ‘Well we had the fastest car, so we just need to get this worked out.'”
And did they ever. A win at Darlington Raceway in the Southern 500 in which Harvick led 238 laps ultimately sparked the team’s turnaround in Week 8 of the 2014 season. The tear the No. 4 team proceeded to launch toward was nearly unbelievable. In the inaugural elimination-style playoff era, a win at Charlotte Motor Speedway launched the group into to the Round of 8, in which they scored the walk-off victory at Phoenix Raceway to propel into the Championship 4. At Homestead-Miami Speedway, there was no stopping Harvick, who led 54 laps en route to the team’s crowning moment with a NASCAR Cup Series championship, capping the season with five wins, 14 top fives, 20 top 10s and just those two pesky DNFs from the early portion of the season.
Jonathan Ferrey | Getty Images
Somehow, some way, they were even better in 2015. Though they fell short in the title race, their statistics were unfathomable: 16 top-two finishes (three of which were wins), 23 top fives, 28 top 10s, one DNF and an average finish of 8.7 across 36 races.
“We were the standard,” Harvick said.
This was a level of dominance not seen since the peak years of Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus — at this point, quasi-teammates through the Hendrick alliance — who served as the No. 4 team’s inspiration. That level of success brought an entirely different mindset to each member of the team — to the point where strong second-place finishes weren’t enough.
“I can remember being angry,” Smith recalled. “Like, we would load the car on the lift gate, and the ride up the lift gate, we wouldn’t even speak to each other because we finished second. It felt like we had failed. But it was fun to have those expectations.”
Despite — or perhaps because — of the team’s dominance, how the team carried itself was important to Childers.
“Yes, we had a lot of confidence, but we tried to stay extremely humble, too,” Childers said. “You know, we worked really hard — everybody here at Stewart-Haas did. And we knew that everybody was looking at our stuff every minute that we were at the race track, whether that was pictures, whether that was different things. I mean, we just tried to move things around and do different things every week and keep people looking at all these different things. And sometimes, we would make them look at the wrong things just so they weren’t looking at the right thing.
“But the whole garage definitely looked up to us. They knew that we were going to be fast every week. They knew our little nuances and details of what we were doing and what we were saying and all that kind of stuff. And it was just a lot of fun, really, to be in that position.”
With such dominating results, post-race technical inspection was a journey for a team that flexed every bit of gray area possible.
“It was also new for us to be the ones that had their cars torn apart in tech week after week after week,” Harvick said, “because when you finish second and you finish first and you do that 16 of the 36 events, I mean, your car’s getting torn apart in half the races, repeatedly. And so to continue that success, no matter if they took this away or they took that away or they changed this or didn’t like that, and then you make all those adjustments — I mean, we just kept coming up with what was next.
“And that was something that, especially after the 2014 championship, the first conversation that we had is: OK, how do we keep this championship mentality week after week for the whole season and not go lay an egg in 2015? That was really as important as it was in coming in in 2014 to have a good year was to not go have a bad year after you won the championship and everybody call it a fluke. So we definitely put that to bed. Then it was just, we were just the 4 team after that.”
ESTABLISHING A LEGACY
To perform and execute at that high a level for any period of time was difficult. And yet, this group did so not just week after week but year after year. From 2014 through 2020, Harvick and the No. 4 team won at least twice a season every year — in fact, two was their fewest in that span.
Four wins in 2016. Eight wins in 2018. Nine wins in 2020.
For a decade, this team became nearly untouchable — even despite a manufacturer change to Ford in 2017.
“I think the biggest thing was just a lot of hard work and a lot of communication and a lot of grit,” Childers said. “Just a lot of different things. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep that going and hard to keep that hard work going. You know, the amount of drive it takes to be that competitive all the time was crazy — and to look back on it now is even more crazy.
“The things that we did and the way that we raced … we didn’t take no for an answer at all, and it didn’t matter what it was. We would rebuild a car on Tuesday if we had to, if we knew something was going to make it better. We would re-wrap it twice if we thought something was going to make it better. We were just after it all the time. And I think just that amount of commitment like we were talking about with the people. … To have a group of people that are willing to stay that committed and to have that much grit every single week is hard to find.”
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
But that was the culture established by Childers, who was unwavering in setting those expectations sky high, and Harvick, whose acceptance of anything less than best efforts drove the team forward. Harvick would tell you as much.
“My group on that car learned really quickly that I was categorized as an (expletive) because of the fact that the expectations that I had were, ‘Hey, you need to do your job, and you need to do it well, and if you’re not going to do it well, we need to go find somebody else,’ ” Harvick said. ” ‘And if you don’t, if you’re not going to do that right, I’m going to call it out, and we’re going to make it so miserable that you’re going to go somewhere else.’ The fortunate thing that I had about that group that we all had with each other was the fact that we could say, ‘Hey, you didn’t do a very good job this weekend. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like that. He didn’t like this, he didn’t like that.’ And everybody would get up and say, ‘OK, we’re gonna make that better. I’ll work on this. You work on that. And what do you want to do tomorrow?’ ”
It was an attitude that permeated the group from top to bottom.
“Rodney is obviously the heartbeat of the team,” Smith said. “He’s a leader. He’s the guy that, on the daily, keeps everybody motivated, and also holds that standard to his culture of we were going to be that way. It was more than just doing what it takes to win. It was the kind of quality of people that we would select. It would be — not only are we going to do everything we can to win, but we’re going to be kind and we’re going to use grace.”
CLOSING THE CHAPTER
And so just two races remain for the No. 4 team at Stewart-Haas Racing.
Berry fills the driver’s seat these days in what was expected to be a multiyear stint with Childers and Co., before the team announced its impending shutdown mid-spring. If only for these 36 races, Berry was able to peek behind the curtain and understand what made this group so good, so strong for so long.
“It starts with Rodney and Cheddar for sure and just the leaders they are and the people they are and the effort that they put into each and every week,” Berry told NASCAR.com. “I think obviously the preparation of the car is one thing, but then just being good leaders with your people and establishing a great culture like they have. I mean, it’s just a great group, honestly.”
Berry knows what’s next for him as the new driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford. Likewise, Childers shored up his plans over the summer and will lead the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet with driver Justin Haley. But Berry already has ideas to bring to new crew chief Miles Stanley in 2025.
“There’s most definitely going to be things that I have taken away,” he said, “and I’ve already talked about with with my new group about things that they did and they did well and how I was treated throughout the year and how supportive of me they were and believed in me — just the confidence that they helped build in me, especially early in the season when we were getting started. I think all those things are just so important to the overall health and the culture of the team as you go through such a long season.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
Defining the legacy of a team can be difficult. For car chief Smith, one word came to mind.
“Incomplete,” he said. “I think that there was a lot left for this group to do together. I think that the caliber of people that are on it still and Josh Berry — I would give almost anything in my career to have Josh for another season with the members of the 4 team to show everybody, not only what we’re capable of but what he’s capable of.”
“I don’t think either one of us ever had dreamed that we would be shutting the doors of SHR,” Berry said.
There are a number of team members still on the No. 4 team who have been there since the group’s inception. But no one — not rear changer Dakota Ratcliff nor the two hauler drivers who have been there the whole time — have anything on shop foreman Dale Fischlein.
“He has been a key figure with the whole thing from Day 1,” Childers said. “He was honestly my first person that I was working to hire. Like he was the first house I went to. I mean, I didn’t even wait to try to get him to go anywhere. I just showed up at his house. We had worked together at Evernham (Motorsports). When I knew I needed a shop foreman, I just showed up at his house, knocked on the door, sat at his kitchen table. And I think he appreciated that side of it and has been here ever since.”
At its core, that belief in each member of the team encapsulates what has made Childers successful as a leader.
“I think the legacy of the 4 team is just going out there and doing what we did in 2020 and 2018,” Childers said. “All those years of dominating practice and being the fastest in practice and sitting on poles and all those things. I think that legacy is just to be a champion and be a contender.”
Harvick defines the legacy today by pointing to the team’s work ethic, its character. He points to the preparation, the relentless grind to not let down the person beside you.
“That preparation and that belief that went along with that team,” Harvick said, “is second to none and probably changed the culture for a lot of things that go with the race car and the expectation in the garage to just have everything that you have be set on kill week after week. And it puts a lot of pressure on the other teams, but also it probably changed the culture in many of them as well, because we really looked at Chad and Jimmie and said, ‘OK, if we’re going to beat those guys, there has to be a certain mindset that goes with this.’ And we were fortunate to be able to do that a couple times.”
Harvick’s driving career may be over. Berry, Childers and others may be wearing different teams’ colors in 2025 and beyond.
But the legacy — the standard — of the No. 4 team will not soon be forgotten.
There truly is no “middle class” in the NASCAR Xfinity Series playoff standings as drivers head to Martinsville Speedway for Saturday’s National Debt Relief 250 (4 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
There are only “haves” and “have nots.” The former group includes Austin Hill and AJ Allmendinger, winners at Homestead and Las Vegas, respectively, in the Round of 8; and Justin Allgaier and defending series champion Cole Custer, who are significantly above the current elimination line for the Championship 4 (35 and 28 points, respectively).
The “have nots” include Chandler Smith, Jesse Love, Sam Mayer and Sammy Smith, who realistically must find a way to win at Martinsville to earn a spot in the Nov. 9 title race at Phoenix Raceway.
Allgaier, who has raced in the Xfinity Series full-time since 2009, is seeking the only significant accomplishment that has eluded him during that span—a series championship.
The 38-year-old from Riverton, Illinois, won last year’s elimination race at Martinsville to advance to the Championship 4 but finished second in the final standings behind Custer, who won the title race.
“We were in a similar position entering Martinsville last year and were fortunate enough to come away with the win and move on to the Championship 4,” said Allgaier, who has five top fives and seven top 10s in eight starts at the 0.526-mile short track. “That just further gives me all the confidence in the world in (crew chief) Jim (Pohlman) and everyone on this (team) as we look ahead to this weekend.
“Martinsville has been a strong track for us, and I know we will be just as solid once we hit the track for practice on Friday. We just need to be smart all day long and keep the fenders as clean as we can on our JR Motorsports Camaro.”
While all the focus is on who advances to the Championship 4 next weekend at Phoenix Raceway, Martin Truex Jr. played spoiler on Saturday, scoring his first pole of the 2024 season at Martinsville Speedway. All four Hendrick Motorsports cars advanced to the final round of qualifying and have contending speed. Meanwhile, the new Goodyear tire compound for this weekend looks to wear tires more rapidly and could be a primary factor come Sunday’s 500-lap extravaganza.
NEXT IN LINE: Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace
RISING: It has been a rough farewell season for Truex, a three-time Martinsville winner. The No. 19 Toyota looked to have one of the best cars in practice and backed it up in qualifying by scoring its first pole since the penultimate race of the 2023 season at Martinsville. After mastering Martinsville between 2017 and 2020, Truex has four finishes outside the top 10 in the last five races.
A confident Elliott is a dangerous Elliott, and the performance of the No. 9 team has been on point in the Round of 8, even if the results don’t show it. Elliott is in a must-win scenario on Sunday, and he looked to have a Chevrolet that could do anything he wanted in practice. Elliott was inside the top five on the short and long run and qualified on the front row.
FALLING: If Denny Hamlin didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all. A large chunk of rubber got stuck in the No. 11 Toyota’s throttle body nearly halfway through the practice session, causing the throttle to hang and leading to a crash entering Turn 3. Hamlin will have to start at the rear, and he believes his only chance of making it to the Championship 4 now is by winning. He won’t be points racing and fantasy is a points game. Take Hamlin out of your lineup.
Wallace wasn’t bad in practice, but the No. 23 Toyota didn’t exactly stick out, either. He does have three top-10 finishes in the last four Martinsville races and considers the facility to be one of his best tracks. But with Hendrick Motorsports’ dominance in qualifying and other fast Toyotas, Wallace has dropped in the pecking order in my lineup.
FEATURED MATCHUPS:
Christopher Bell vs. Denny Hamlin: Five-hundred laps around the famed short track can be an eternity. Drivers will jab the brakes 1,000 times on corner entry. The No. 11 team will race its primary car and has time to recover from starting at the rear of the field. Bell has been clicking on another level in the playoffs with an average finish of 5.5, including seven top-10 finishes in eight races. But he also has mixed numbers at Martinsville and will start in the middle of the pack (16th) on Sunday. With the unknown of how much pace Hamlin’s car will have, Bell is the safe choice.
Kyle Larson vs. William Byron: This matchup is brutal. Byron has a swagger about him this weekend, looking to sweep the 2024 Martinsville events. Larson is much more comfortable at Martinsville compared to years past, having success with Hendrick here. There’s a points battle that could be brewing as well, though it could go to waste if their teammate Elliott wins. The No. 24 car looks to have a bit more potential.
Ryan Blaney vs. Chase Elliott: I’m flipping on picks like I’m reading a book this weekend. Despite having a single victory, Blaney has become the standard at Martinsville, with eight top-five finishes in the last 11 races. However, Elliott is my pick for the win entering Sunday as he has been in a similar position of needing a victory to advance to Phoenix before. Not sure if that will catapult him to the championship as it did in 2020, but the No. 9 car is the pick.
Martin Truex Jr. vs. Chase Briscoe: As DJ Khaled would say: “Another one.” Briscoe nearly missed my lineup and is one of three drivers to have top 10 finishes in all five Next Gen races at Martinsville, but Truex is starting from the pole with the best track position. The No. 14 car made the final round of qualifying but give me the No. 19 Toyota on Sunday.
In his quest for the NASCAR Cup Series championship, Denny Hamlin may make his last stand — for 2024 at least — in his home state of Virginia, when he takes to the track at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday afternoon (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
And if we’re being completely honest, his odds of winning a championship this year are not good. According to my NASCAR Cup Series playoff forecast, which simulates the rest of the playoffs 10,000 times to track each driver’s chances of advancing through and/or winning the title, Hamlin has just a 13% probability of making his fifth career Championship 4 appearance.
Hamlin goes into the penultimate race of the season trailing William Byron by 18 points in the standings, with longtime rival Kyle Larson wedged 11 points in front of him as well. While he can still potentially make it in without a victory on Sunday, the odds are stacked against it — so his best path involves adding another of those fancy grandfather clocks to his collection (which already includes five of them, tops among active drivers):
Things didn’t need to be quite so dire for Hamlin, though. If not for an unfortunate mistake earlier in the season, he would be much closer to extending his title hopes — and far less reliant on a win this weekend to make that happen.
I’m talking, of course, about the L2-level penalty given to the No. 11 team for running afoul of NASCAR’s engine inspection requirements following Hamlin’s win on March 17 at Bristol. The Toyota Racing Development team mistakenly disassembled and rebuilt that race-winning engine before presenting it to NASCAR for inspection, violating multiple sections of the NASCAR Rule Book in the process.
Both Joe Gibbs Racing and Hamlin were docked 75 points in the regular-season standings and 10 playoff points when the violation was announced in mid-August, following Toyota self-reporting the infraction.
While all of the implications weren’t fully known at the time, Hamlin knew the penalty could end up looming large when he spoke of the situation on his weekly podcast, Actions Detrimental.
“You can look at it and say, ‘Well it’s just a 10-point penalty,’ but it isn’t,” Hamlin said in August. “Look where I’m at now: I’m eighth in points. I was battling for the regular-season championship, which would have paid 15 points, and now at most I’m probably going to get three. Just a huge swing for us … and we know that these cutlines come down to the number, (it) always does.”
Those words seem particularly prophetic now. Let’s break down what would have changed in the regular-season standings if nothing else changed in terms of on-track results, but Hamlin’s team never received the engine penalty:
Hamlin would have finished 30 points shy of Tyler Reddick for the Regular Season Championship, but he would have ranked fourth in the final standings instead of seventh, which would have yielded a bonus of seven playoff points instead of the four he actually received. When you include the initial penalty of 10 playoff points, that reduced Hamlin’s overall playoff tally by 13 points (while also giving one point apiece to rivals Christopher Bell, William Byron and Ryan Blaney).
Carry that forward to the present, and we can see how much closer to the Championship 4 Hamlin would be in the playoff standings without the ripple effects from the penalty. In a hypothetical world, Hamlin would leapfrog Larson to rank fifth in the standings heading into Martinsville (rather than sixth), a mere four points below the cutline instead of 18 below:
That, in turn, would more than double his advancement odds in my forecast model, raising them from 13% to 29% — and lifting his championship chances from 4% to 9% in the process.
No, Hamlin wouldn’t be above the elimination line, nor favored to move on, even in a world without the penalty. He can’t blame it totally for a playoff run that has seen him finish outside the top 20 just as often as he’s finished among the top five. But just the same, he would be under a lot less pressure now if the penalty never happened. His odds of advancing on points without a win at Martinsville would be 24% — instead of just 6% — including a coin-flip’s chance (47%) to make it by finishing between Nos. 2-5 — instead of just 14%, as we noted above.
Simply put, Denny’s path to that first-ever championship was made a lot harder when that engine mistake happened — and he knew it at the time. But it’s still far from over for the No. 11 car, at a track where Hamlin has seen so much success (and is the co-favorite to win again, alongside Larson).
So maybe we’ll look back on the penalty as just another chapter in the story of Hamlin’s first title. The data shows, though, it likely will prove to be one obstacle too many in the career of a driver who can’t seem to catch that crucial break to help push him over the top.
PHILADELPHIA — Comcast is proud to announce the finalists for the 2024 Comcast Community Champion of the Year Award, the prestigious annual award created to recognize the extraordinary philanthropic efforts of individuals across the NASCAR industry.
These remarkable individuals have demonstrated unwavering dedication and inspiring acts of service, creating ripples of positive change that extend far beyond the race track. From championing melanoma research to empowering colleagues and ensuring the health of their communities through life-saving blood drives, the 2024 finalists embody the spirit of giving back.
The 2024 finalists are:
• Scott Crowell, senior manager of facility operations, NASCAR Productions (Willow’s Wish Foundation)
• Erik Jones, Driver, Legacy Motor Club (Erik Jones Foundation)
• Susan McKee, senior director of HR/IT, Charlotte Motor Speedway (Speedway Children’s Charities)
Comcast’s Xfinity brand entered NASCAR as entitlement partner of the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2015 and is now also a Premier Partner of the NASCAR Cup Series. Since the program’s inception, Comcast has donated more than $1 million to 27 nonprofit organizations, amplifying the impact of the philanthropic efforts of all finalists and champions.
“We are continuously inspired by the stories we receive, each showcasing the significant contributions from individuals across the NASCAR industry,” said Matt Lederer, vice president of brand partnerships and engagement at Xfinity. “This year’s finalists are exceptional individuals united by a shared mission of making a positive impact in their communities and beyond.”
The 2024 Comcast Community Champion of the Year will be selected by a panel of esteemed Comcast and NASCAR executives, along with Ryan Vargas, the 2023 Comcast Community Champion of the Year for his work with FACES: The National Craniofacial Association.
“Comcast has consistently demonstrated their dedication to supporting the NASCAR community with its philanthropic efforts nationwide. What Comcast did for FACES: The National Craniofacial Association cannot be understated. Their funds went directly into the, helping put on FACES Camp 2024 and has boosted Craniosynostosis and Craniofacial awareness across the industry and nation. I am honored to hold the title of Comcast Community Champion of the Year and am proud to stand alongside Erik, Scott, and Susan, who are each an inspiration to me” said Ryan Vargas.
2024 Comcast Community Champion of the Year finalists:
Scott Crowell (Charlotte, N.C.) — Scott has more than three decades of experience in the racing industry, transitioning from a pit crew member to team truck driver, and now serving as NASCAR’s senior manager of facility operations. While his career reflects a passion for racing, his true calling is giving back to individuals and his community. With a deep commitment to genuine care, he excels at connecting with others by rallying volunteers, leading donation efforts, and creating personalized support plans.
Scott has actively engaged in various charitable initiatives, building strong relationships with those in need and volunteers alike. His passion for supporting the special needs community has led him to volunteer for years with the Joyful Hearts organization, particularly during their Joy Prom event. These experiences have culminated in his most rewarding passion yet.
In 2020, Scott’s youngest granddaughter was born with a rare trisomy condition. Supporting his daughter and son-in-law through this challenging journey led them to discover a calling for creating lasting change. This passion culminated in the establishment of the Willow’s Wish Foundation, which fosters inclusive environments. Their current initiative focuses on installing inclusive changing tables in parks and public spaces, each costing around $7-10k. Scott played a crucial role in securing and installing the first of 11 tables in a long-term partnership with the City of Concord. The ultimate goal is to replicate this model across communities nationwide, ensuring a meaningful legacy for years to come.
Erik Jones (Byron, Mich,) — A natural-born leader, Jones has made significant strides in giving back to the community. Established in August 2021, he launched the Erik Jones Foundation, designed to provide charitable donations to organizations and offer direct-to-individual programs within communities across the country. Focused on areas of importance to him, the Erik Jones Foundation consists of three main pillars: reading literacy, early cancer screening and detection, and animal welfare.
To support reading literacy, Jones started the #ReadwithErik program during the COVID-19 pandemic as a weekly Facebook Live and, since then, the program has grown to include in-person readings at both race tracks and schools around the country. The Foundation also partners with schools to donate book vending machines and, this year, launched a pen pal program. After his father lost his battle with cancer in 2016, and with his mother being a breast cancer survivor, early cancer detection and care have been key to the Erik Jones Foundation. During its first year, the Erik Jones Foundation donated $20,000 to the Melanoma Research Foundation and has been instrumental in distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sunscreen samples and bringing the Sun Bus — a mobile skin screening center — to race fans. The foundation also hosts the ‘Window of Hope’ pink window net program at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval to raise funds for breast cancer screenings and care. Passionate about animal welfare, Jones has been able to make donations to animal shelters and partner with key organizations such as the mid-Michigan K9 Association, Adopt-A-Pet Fenton (Michigan) and Rescue Ranch in Statesville, North Carolina.
Susan McKee (Charlotte, N.C.) — Leading Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Pit Crew, a group of staff volunteers she helped establish in 2010, Susan proved her undeniable commitment to service through the creation of new campaigns, volunteer programs, and initiatives with a purpose to help those in her community.
In August, Susan led the speedway’s seventh annual Day of Service. Employees showed their commitment to positively impact the community, with 84 volunteers lending over 275 hours of labor to three local nonprofits as well as creating Bags of Hope, sensory kits, and refreshing Blessing Boxes around the community.
With the help of Susan’s extensive leadership and guidance, the Pit Crew organized blood drives in conjunction with the American Red Cross and OneBlood that yielded 900 units of blood — helping over 2,600 community members. With a heart for those in need and a passion for giving back, McKee has proven her commitment to serving those in need.
Comcast has a storied history of strengthening communities each and every day of the year providing education opportunities and digital skills training to help create more pathways to economic mobility for young people and adults alike, most recently through its Project UP initiative. For more information on Project UP and the latest news on efforts to address digital inequities, visit https://corporate.comcast.com/impact/project-up.
1. What lasting moment will be made at Martinsville?
In a season — and postseason, in particular — full of jaw-droppers, it feels likely that the legendary half-mile will offer 2024’s latest historic moment.
Honestly, at this point, it’s hard not to feel spoiled.
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season has seen a plethora of impactful moments, at a tempo that has only seemed to ratchet up once the calendar turned to September.
Tyler Reddick’s wall-riding, last-lap rampage as he stormed to the checkered flag and a Championship 4 berth Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway was just the latest entry in an overflowing bin of “holy $&*%” things we’ve seen on the race track this year, reminiscent of Ross Chastain’s “Hail Melon” at Martinsville Speedway a few years back, but on a track triple in size.
We now head to that same track — NASCAR’s oldest and most historic — and it feels inevitable that come Sunday evening we’ll be sitting back in our seats, in awe of what we’ve just witnessed and clamoring for more.
There is perhaps no track more fitting to decide which four drivers will battle next weekend at Phoenix Raceway for the 2024 Bill France Cup than a quaint, half-mile in rural Virginia.
Everything always seems to happen in this race, from walk-off wins, to video-game moves, to sunset-drenched proclamations of “goin’ to Homestead” to post-race shouting matches to interrupting a driver’s burnout and calling him a hack. It feels like we’ve seen it all at Martinsville, and yet it continues to surprise us.
Based on how things have gone for the past, oh, nine months or so, do we have literally any reason to think another memory won’t find a permanent home in NASCAR lore on Sunday?
“Martinsville is probably the perfect place for being an elimination race,” two-time champion Joey Logano told Ford Performance. “I know NASCAR thinks about this stuff when they put the schedule together and they look at Martinsville and think, ‘Everyone is gonna be really close to each other. There’s gonna be full contact. A lot of things can happen.’ You look at all the (elimination) races that we have. Bristol, cars are all over each other. The Roval, the tightest road course we go to and the cars are all over each other. Martinsville it’s the same thing, so you’ve got to expect drama when you go there. Some people will be in do-or-die scenarios and what are they willing to do?”
If a driver answers with anything other than “win at all costs” … better luck next year.
Apart from Logano and his fellow locked-in Reddick, no other Round of 8 drivers are safe entering the weekend, even Christopher Bell with his 29-point cushion as the top driver not yet clinched. A win is the surest way to keep your championship hopes alive a week from now, and for those below the elimination line, the history ain’t too pretty if they’re counting on making up that deficit.
Only once has a driver pointed their way into the Championship 4 when entering the final race of the Round of 8 below the bubble. Martin Truex Jr. did that from sixth place in the standings in 2021, and he only needed to dig out of a measly three-point hole. With everyone from Kyle Larson (fifth, -7) and on facing deeper deficits than that, he and Denny Hamlin (-18), Ryan Blaney (-38) and Chase Elliott (-43) should consider this nothing short of a must-win race.
The good news for them, though, is that this is a common occurrence — a playoff driver has won the final race of the Round of 8 when entering below the elimination line in 40% of this format’s history. And in each of the past five seasons, at least one driver from below the elimination line after the first Round of 8 race has made the Championship 4; in this case, that would be Hamlin, Blaney or Elliott.
Those three drivers have a combined 10 elimination-race wins in playoff history and are each formidable at Martinsville historically, so if you’re looking for drivers to keep an especially close eye on, it’s worth starting with them. Especially considering that of the three eventual Cup champs to win their way into the Championship 4 from below the elimination line, those are two of ‘em.
2. Is Martinsville going to be Hamlin’s race to lose?
The home-stater Hamlin has had Martinsville wrapped around his finger for a long time, but it might not be enough to hold off his feisty competitors.
“You’re not out of it till they throw the checkered flag at Martinsville,” Denny Hamlin said after Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he left below the elimination line.
For now, Hamlin’s championship hopes are indeed dwindling yet still alive — but we’re a handful of days away from knowing if that’ll remain the case or if we’re a few months away from the perpetual slew of “This could finally be Denny’s year”-type preseason coverage we’ve grown accustomed to.
At times, it definitely has felt like 2024 was going to be the one (honestly, a not-too-unfamiliar feeling), and at times, it has looked, once again, like something would happen to snatch the potential of a first Cup Series championship from his grip.
With everything on the line at Martinsville and some recent spirited playoff performances, though — you can feel pretty good about him making his first Championship 4 since 2021. After that, who knows, but it feels like he’ll get there.
The Chesterfield, Virginia, native’s five wins are nearly as many as the rest of the playoff drivers have combined (seven), and while Hamlin and the No. 11 coalition are not immune to in-race mishaps and toe-stubbing, crew chief Chris Gabehart always seems to bring a fast car to the race track when his driver needs it the most.
Hamlin will undoubtedly be a factor, but what has made this Round of 8 so compelling is just the sheer magnitude of talent from top to bottom on display. If you want that Championship 4 spot, you’re going to have to really work for it.
“This is so, so intense and we knew coming into the Round of 8 with these drivers, we were going to have winners, winners and winners,” said Bell, the only back-to-back Championship 4 contender looking for a third. “Coming to Homestead, you look at the guys who run well here and you’re expecting a winner from the bottom half of the grid, and I think the same thing will happen in Martinsville.
He was right — Toyota teammate Reddick won from well below the elimination line after flipping a week earlier at Las Vegas.
While that descriptor applies to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin, it also applies to Elliott — who’s riding a series-best six-race top-10 streak on short tracks, the longest of his career. And good golly, have you seen Hendrick Motorsports’ Martinsville stats?
Just to list a few:
• Only team to lead more than 10,000 laps at a track (10,852 laps led at Martinsville)
• 29 wins there are the most ever by a team at a track
• Won five of the last eight Martinsville races with four different drivers
• Finished 1-2-3 in April, the first 1-2-3 finish by a team ever at the track
With three drivers remaining, battling with each other (along with three other, less friendly drivers) for just two remaining spots, surely we’ll see at least one Hendrick pilot at the front of the field for a good, long stretch, and possibly all three. That said, while Hendrick has won five of the last 12 races there, JGR and Team Penske — the other two teams with drivers looking for Championship 4 spots — won the other seven, so it’s not a complete monopoly.
It’s also worth noting that Logano will be driving with absolutely no pressure this weekend and is sporting the longest top-10 streak he’s ever had at a track in Martinsville (10). It’s the longest active top-10 streak of any driver at the venue as well, so we can’t rule it out that he plays spoiler and takes away his competitors’ ability to take fate into their own hands with a win. Team Penske is just stout there, with Blaney in a great spot this weekend, too — his nine top fives at Martinsville are his most at any track.
So while the race feels like in some ways Hamlin’s to lose based on his history, there are plenty of hungry and capable wolves waiting to pounce on a Championship 4 berth, should they get the opportunity to feast.
NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran details the changes to the Cup Series tires ahead of the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway.
4. Will Ryan Blaney pull off a second straight “Jimmie Johnson?”
Four times did “Seven Time” win the Martinsville playoff race en route to a title — and once three years in a row. No. 12 has an excellent shot to become just the second driver to do it back-to-back, as winning at Martinsville often indicates a title is near. (Credit: Racing Insights)
Year
Champion
2006
Jimmie Johnson
2007
Jimmie Johnson
2008
Jimmie Johhnson
2011
Tony Stewart
2016
Jimmie Johnson
2018
Joey Logano
2020
Chase Elliott
2023
Ryan Blaney
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
Ryan Blaney’s mind has fully shifted to Sunday’s Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville Speedway, but the defending champ hasn’t forgotten about his final-lap, final-turn decision last week at Homestead that cost him a guaranteed spot in the Championship 4.
After grasping the lead from Denny Hamlin with two laps to go, Blaney was pressured by Tyler Reddick down the backstretch and had to make a quick decision on whether to defend the top or block the bottom to deter a potential slide job from the No. 45 driver and 2024 regular-season champion. Blaney chose the latter but Reddick ripped the fence on two-lap older tires to speed past Blaney in Turns 3 and 4 to steal the victory and punch his ticket to Phoenix.
It was a dream tug left at the wheel for Reddick while Blaney was left pondering what could’ve been in the hours after the race.
“I rewatched it when I got home Sunday night,” Blaney said. “I rewatched the whole race and rewatched the end of it and lost some sleep over the end of that race. I mean, it’s so easy to go back and watch it from the broadcast or relive it in your head of like ‘well, gosh, if I just would have done this different, it would have been a different outcome.’ But that’s easy to do, like, in the moment, it’s really hard to make the right decision. You’re making a lot of decisions every lap and I look back on that, and I talk about in some scenarios, whether it’s speedways or end of these races whether you’re leading or second or whatever, you’re guessing. In some situations, on what lane is going to be better, where the car in front of you is going to go, where the car behind you is going to go, you’re guessing. And sometimes you guess right, sometimes you guess wrong. I guessed wrong on where he was going to go.”
All sports, and especially in racing, require a lot of split-second decision-making. While looking back at the tape Blaney became a viewer, just like fans at home, asking himself why he made the choice to go to the bottom when the best move would’ve been to defend the top.
“I can only speak on pro sports because I am a part of one and I watch a lot of others, and it’s like, when I watch a football game, I’m like, ‘why didn’t he just do that?’ … In the moment, when you’re that person and you’re that athlete, or living in that time, it’s so much harder than being on the outside and watching on TV with all different angles and things like that. You’re making real-time decisions in the moment. You don’t have any time to like process, think about it, go through all the options. It’s boom, boom, boom. It’s all happening super fast.
“You’re never going to be batting 1.000 for making the right decision, the right call and that’s what the difficulty of sporting is, is can you make the right decisions? And how often do you make the right decisions? In my mind, going down the back, I’m seeing the run that he’s got down the back, and the timing of it, I’m like, ‘OK, I think he might pull a slider here.’ That’s what I kind of made my mind up on is that he was going to pull a slider and I was just going to kind of enter where I did and slide up the track. If he did pull a slider, maybe I can pull under him or where I kind of entered I was like ‘well, I’m going to cut a little distance off the race track here to where maybe I can still be on his outside if he did pull a slider and I can drive back around him.’ It was just the wrong move.”
Instead of having a fun, relaxed day as one could have at a tough track like Martinsville, Blaney will now have to fight for a checkered flag if he wants to keep his title defense alive as he’ll enter Sunday’s Xfinity 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) 38 points below the elimination line.
The upside for the No. 12 Team Penske team is that both Chase Elliott (2020) and Christopher Bell (2022) have won at Martinsville entering beneath the elimination line, proving it can be done. Elliott would win the title in ’20, and Blaney himself is the defending winner of the Martinsville playoff race, which rocketed him to last year’s championship.
Not only will Sunday be a physical hurdle for Blaney along with making the right adjustments all weekend long, but it also will be a mental challenge the rest of the week and until the season ends potentially to move on from how Homestead played out.
“I feel like the mental side is the toughest thing about our sport,” Blaney said. “It’s just how do you mentally stay in it and how do you adjust to what you need to do week in, week out and in the moment, and then for the future. So I try not to dwell on the past too much, and you just learn from it and move on.”
For Sunday’s Cup Series playoff race at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), Goodyear will introduce a new left-side tire compound as it continues to fine tune its tire combinations on short tracks this season.
Earlier this season, Goodyear introduced the option tire for the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway and was used again in the summer at Richmond Raceway. It was a softer right-side tire that generated more speed on the shorter run but wore out quicker than the standard tire during the course of a green-flag run.
Goodyear will use the option tire compound as the standard right-side tire for Sunday’s Round of 8 finale, while the left-side tire will be one of the company’s softest compounds.
“This year has been one of great development and advances on our short-track tire package,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “The option tire that we ran at both North Wilkesboro and Richmond has been designed to give the Cup cars more grip early in a run and have lap times fall off more later. We come to Martinsville with that same right-side tread compound as part of the setup teams will run, along with a left-side tire that utilizes the ‘softest’ tread compound in our tire lineup. Martinsville is a tricky track for many reasons — not only the time of year we race there, but also the layout with the tight, concrete corners. We had a good test there in August and came out of it with this setup, which is another step forward on our short track package.”
To get teams and drivers acclimated to the new tire setup, NASCAR will hold an extended 45-minute practice session on Saturday at Martinsville.
“We did some testing at Martinsville back in August, which has created a new, even softer left-side tire,” said Brad Moran, NASCAR Cup Series managing director. “All the tires will be new there. We do have the extended practice. They have an additional set of practice tires to do some adjustments. We sure hope it creates some interesting racing, and how it’s all going to work out, it’s one of those deals where we’re really not going to know until we get them all out there on Sunday.”
At Martinsville, Cup teams will get two sets of tires for practice, one set for qualifying and 10 sets for the race (nine race sets plus one set transferred from qualifying).
