PHOENIX, AZ – Will lightning strike three times for Christopher Bell?
Can Ross Chastain parlay his amazing Martinsville rim ride into a championship for upstart Trackhouse Racing?
Will the NASCAR Cup Series feature more than one active multiple champion for the first time since Jimmie Johnson retired after the 2020 season?
Those questions will be answered on Sunday when the four eligible drivers—Bell, Chastain, 2018 champion Joey Logano and 2020 champion Chase Elliott—race for the title in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship event at Phoenix Raceway (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The season finale arrives with the sport still buzzing from the improbable events in last Sunday’s Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville. As he had done in the Round of 12, Christopher Bell converted a must-win opportunity to advance in the Playoffs, this time to the Championship 4.
On the final lap of the Martinsville event, Chastain, against all odds, floored his No. 1 Chevrolet and rode the wall through Turns 3 and 4 to steal a Playoff spot from Denny Hamlin, who lost a chance to compete in the Championship 4 a fourth straight time.
Chastain said he would have preferred to come to Phoenix with less fanfare, even though the move he pulled off at Martinsville is certain to be an indelible moment in NASCAR lore.
“I wish I would’ve had five more points throughout the Playoffs, and I could’ve just cruised in 10th and been out of sight, out of mind, and no one was the wiser that we made it, except us,” Chastain said. “Those weren’t the cards we were dealt though.
“This means the world. This is a life achievement, a career achievement—this is what we work for and dream about. Just getting the opportunity is all I could ever ask for. Then to do it, make the decision I did down the backstretch is wild enough. The fact that it worked is truly unbelievable. I still watch the video, and it doesn’t look real.”
If Chastain defied the odds in the microcosm of one lap at Martinsville, Bell did so on a grander scale with his victories in the Round of 12 and Round of 8 elimination races. Like Chastain, the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will be competing in the Championship 4 for the first time.
“When you get to this and you think about who’s sitting there, who he’s going to have to race against, those three other competitors from great organizations, I think it’s going to be extremely hard,” said team owner Joe Gibbs in a Tuesday video conference with reporters.
“I think the way our Playoffs are designed, it does bring a lot of excitement to it, every three races, dropping out four cars. Now we’re down to just four.”
Of the Championship 4 drivers, Logano boasts the most appearances in the title race—five, tied for series-best. His two victories at Phoenix Raceway also are tops among the championship-eligible drivers.
Elliott, on the other hand, won his championship at Phoenix and has that experience in his memory banks, whereas Logano claimed his title when the season finale was held at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Kyle Busch is the only active driver with more than one Cup title, having won in 2015 and 2019.
Team owner Rick Hendrick actually has two cars competing for championships—Elliott for the drivers’ title and Kyle Larson for the owners’ crown in the No. 5 Chevrolet.
“I think Sunday could be… just like always, a pit stop, somebody hits the air pressures right, cautions fall at the right time,” Hendrick said. “You just have to run it and see how it ends up.
“But there are four really, really good drivers in that race. You know, it’s just going to be hard to pick a winner in there. Of course, I hope our guys are the ones that win it. But it’s going to be a good show. It’s going to be a hard-fought show.”
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
