The NASCAR Xfinity Series closes out the 2020 season Saturday with the Desert Diamond Casino West Valley 200 (5 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Phoenix Raceway with four of the year’s most accomplished drivers hoping to become first-time series champions.
Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier and Justin Haley have combined to earn 20 victories in the 33-races to date. All four drivers are multi-time race winners and all four drivers are eager to host their first-ever Xfinity Series championship trophy.
Among the title-eligible foursome, Allgaier is the only driver with a previous Phoenix win, earning victories in both Spring, 2017 and then last year’s Playoff race.
Briscoe, the 25-year old Indiana native, however, has proven himself the class of the field this year with a career-best single-season mark of nine victories. He is the only championship-eligible driver with multiple wins in the Playoff – taking a trophy in both previous rounds – at Las Vegas and then at Kansas. He led laps at five of the six Playoff races and his 453 laps out front in that time is tops among the Championship 4 contenders.
Briscoe, who drives the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, has only one top-10 finish in three previous Xfinity Series starts at Phoenix, however, with a best showing of sixth in March. He finished fourth in his only NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series start at the Phoenix mile in 2017.
This week’s finale not only represents Briscoe’s first chance to hoist a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship trophy but it’s his last full-time start in the series he will make after being given the opportunity to move into the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 14 Ford in the NASCAR Cup Series next year. Saturday’s race marks an important bridge in the young driver’s career.
“I think, for me, you always want to go out on top anytime you leave any team or any series, you want to leave on top,” Briscoe said. “You want to feel like you didn’t leave anything on the table and I’ve been super fortunate. In ARCA I was able to win the last race of the season and win the championship. In the Truck Series, I was able to win the last race that season and that’s always been as I’ve progressed to the next year.
“Hopefully, the third time continues to be that way, but you definitely want to do that. You want to reward those guys. I’ve been with the 98 team for two and a half years now and without those guys there’s no way I would be moving on to the 14, so I want to say thank you to those guys and I want to give them a championship. That’s what they all deserve. They’ve worked so hard, not only this year but the last two and a half years and you want to go out and you definitely have a little bit of added pressure, I think, just in general of wanting to make those guys proud and want to go out on top as a team.”
As has been the case all season, Briscoe fully expects the only other Ford driver in the championship field to be a fierce competitor on Saturday. Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, has five wins in 2020 – also a career-best mark for a single season. His 25 top-10 and 18 top-five finishes are a career-best and he earned the regular-season championship.
Cindric, 22, hasn’t won a race since the summer road course event at Daytona Beach, but he has four top-10 finishes in the six-race Playoffs. And his recent efforts at Phoenix are encouraging. He’s finished top-10 in the last four starts at the desert mile with a best finish of fourth in the 2018 Xfinity Series Playoff race there.
“I think you have to approach Phoenix as a must-win situation,” Cindric said earlier this week. “Just because the competitiveness this year has been off the charts. Also, the unpredictability of who was going to be good on what day. I think that has been fun from a competitive side to try to figure out, but also anyone that has watched and enjoyed watching Xfinity races this year.
“I don’t think you can underestimate any of your competitors and you have to bring your best foot forward.”
At 34 years old, Allgaier brings a certain veteran mentality to Saturday’s championship round. He’s won three races this season – all on tracks one-mile or shorter – and scored a Playoff best runner-up finish at the Martinsville half-miler just last week. With the two victories, two runner-up showings and 12 top-10 finishes in 20 previous Phoenix races, Allgaier certainly presents a formidable resume. The driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet has led a Playoff best 385 laps at Phoenix, adding to the front-running total in four of the last five races. He finished 13th in March but led 51 laps, most among the four Playoff drivers.
Haley, 21, also of Indiana, has had a stellar Playoff debut season winning at Talladega and earning four top-10 finishes in the opening six races – including two top-10s in the last three events. His 20 top-10s on the year matches his previous best year (2019) and his 10 top-five finishes doubles his previous best mark in the Xfinity Series. He scored his first career Xfinity win in the No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet at Talladega in the Spring, then won again on the Daytona high banks before earning the Talladega sweep with a second victory there last month.
Haley has two top-10 finishes in three Phoenix Xfinity Series starts, with a best showing of fifth this March – which was also the top finish of any of the Championship 4 drivers in that race. He made three Truck Series starts at Phoenix with a career-best seventh back in 2015 as a 16-year old.
And while these four drivers have a championship trophy to race for, they can expect legitimate competition from several other drivers. Brandon Jones won this race in March, finishing just ahead of Harrison Burton, who has won the last two 2020 season races coming into this weekend. And Ross Chastain, like Jones and Burton part of the original 2020 Playoff contingent, will be looking to score his first victory of the year in his final Xfinity Series race before he moves up into the NASCAR Cup Series ranks fulltime in 2020.
Source: Holly Cain | NASCAR Wire Service
