AVONDALE, Ariz.— With the NASCAR championship decided at Phoenix Raceway, this weekend’s Shriners Children’s 500 might be the most important race on the spring schedule.
For the alpha teams featuring perennial title contenders, collecting data over the next two days on the one-mile track could be invaluable.
With a new tire and a 45-minute practice session on Saturday afternoon, teams will have ample time to refresh their notebooks for November.
“We’re trying things,” said Denny Hamlin. “Last year (the season finale) was a little different because we were trying to help the 45 car (of Championship 4 driver Tyler Reddick) out. So we just kind of ran his stuff all weekend—no questions asked. In the spring last year, we were a top-two or three car.
“But consistently, year over year, we’ve been a fifth- to seventh-place car in the finale. And if you look at the same cars out front, you can pretty much script the top five, and they’ve been pretty consistent when it comes to the championship race.”
Hamlin is right. For the last five years, since Phoenix Raceway has hosted Championship Weekend, the same cast of characters has dominated. Hamlin was one of those contenders the first two years.
Joey Logano is the current leader in the Land of the Sun clubhouse with three Phoenix wins, three Championship 4 appearances and two titles since 2020. Chase Elliott also has three Champ 4 appearances but just one win and one title in 2020.
Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron have advanced twice each. Larson won the race and the title in 2021. His average finish at Phoenix since 2020 is eighth. When Byron won the 2023 spring race, he went on to advance to that season’s Championship Race. He did the same last year.
Ryan Blaney has also been a challenger in the last two season finales and finished second in both. However, in 2023, Blaney won the title but lost the race to non-Champ 4 racer Ross Chastain. Chastain, who had advanced to the final round in 2022, fell short last year.
Blaney doesn’t find the complexion of the March Phoenix race much different from the finale.
“It’s pretty early in the year,” Blaney said. “You’re kind of working the cobwebs out a little bit and trying to figure out where you’re at. So I don’t think it races a ton different as far as the track’s surface and lanes and stuff like that.
“It’s just that race at the end of the year, everybody has their stuff figured out the best that they can where in the beginning, they are still sorting through some stuff. That’s the only difference.”
And over the last three season finales, no one has figured it out better than Team Penske. Although Hendrick Motorsports has secured seven of the 20 Champ 4 spots over the last five years, only Elliott and Larson have been victorious.
Four different Toyota drivers have accounted for six appearances since 2020 with defending Shriners Children’s race winner Christopher Bell advancing in 2022 and 2023 and nearly qualifying in 2024 before he was penalized at Martinsville Speedway.
Penske has also had six opportunities in the Champ 4 but swept the last three Cup titles. The juggernaut’s success has competitors scrambling to figure out Penske’s secret weapon.
“What we have to do to get better is to come up with new ideas,” Hamlin said. “I think that’s certainly at the forefront of everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing—to try and get better at it. Because if you want to get better at it, you’ve got to be better at that track.
“There’s no way we’re going to go back there with the same thing that we had and think we’re automatically going to be faster. Yes, it’s a good test any way because it’s the first shorter track that we go to for the year. We’re measuring up all kinds of different things. We’re not just testing for that race in the fall, we’re testing for Loudon, we’re testing for Richmond. There are all kinds of things.
“And certainly, with that new option tire they’re going to have there, that’s likely going to be the championship race tire as long as it doesn’t blow out. So it could completely change the game.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at [email protected].
