By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service

The Showdown in the Sun: Phoenix Set to Decide NASCAR’s 2025 Champion

AVONDALE, Ariz. – And so it has come down to this – 312 laps in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway to crown the 2025 champion. Four drivers representing two of the sport’s powerhouse teams – Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports – will settle the title.

Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway on November 10, 2024 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

And for three of the four eligible drivers – veteran Denny Hamlin (No. 11 JGR Toyota) and his new Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe (No. 19 Toyota) along with Hendrick Motorsports’ two-time defending Daytona 500 champion William Byron (No. 24 Chevrolet) are hoping to hoist the sport’s most cherished trophy for the first time.

Byron’s Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson (No. 5 Chevrolet) is racing for his second title and would become one of only three multi-time champions (Joey Logano and Kyle Buch) currently competing fulltime in the sport.

This is Hamlin’s record 19th Playoff appearance and fifth time in the Championship Four. His best finish is runner-up in 2010 to NASCAR Hall of Famer and seven-time champ Jimmie Johnson.

After 35 compelling races this season including nine weeks of intense Playoff competition, the title simply comes down to the best finisher Sunday among those four drivers – Hamlin, Briscoe, Byron and Larson – at the one-mile Phoenix oval. Hamlin’s six wins – the most recent at Las Vegas in the penultimate Playoff round – is double that of each of his competitors.

All four of the title contenders have previous wins at Phoenix. Byron (2023) and Briscoe (2022) have Spring race victories. Larson was the 2021 Fall race winner and the veteran Hamlin (Spring, 2012 and Fall, 2019) is the only one among the four championship drivers with multiple wins in the desert.

Interestingly, Larson is the only championship contender still without a victory in this year’s Playoff stretch. However, the encouraging news for the No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet team is that his 10 top-five finishes at Phoenix are the most for him at any track on the schedule.

“Hopefully this will be good for the fans and everybody and the excitement,” team owner Joe Gibbs said. “Probably won’t be good for me. I’ll be so nervous and uptight about it (smiling).

“To get to the Final Four is a thrill, and we’re thrilled to be in it. It’s great for our sponsors and our entire organization. You got to give Rick [Hendrick] and them just all the credit in the world.”

Even the manufacturers represented in this title round have a strong recent Phoenix resume with both Toyota and Chevrolet winning twice in the last five races there.

Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet started from pole position and led 107 of the 312 laps in his 2021 title-season victory. He led a dominating 201 laps only to finish fourth in Byron’s win in the No. 24 Hendrick Chevy two years later.

Briscoe, a three-race winner this season, led 101 laps in his 2022 victory in the desert driving a Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Hamlin’s No. 11 JGR Toyota led a race best 143 laps of the 312 laps in his 2019 Fall win prior to the track’s hosting the championship finale – and he led 61 laps in his 2012 Spring victory.

Defending race winner and reigning series champion Logano and his Team Penske group may well have a lot to say about Sunday’s race trophy however. Neither he nor 2023 championship teammate Ryan Blaney advanced to have a shot at the title this year but like the other non-championship contenders in the field remain fully committed to a victory to close out the season.

Logano has four Phoenix wins including this race last year that earned him his third series title. JGR’s Christopher Bell has won two of the last three Phoenix races including this Spring. Richard Childress Racing’s Busch would love to return to Victory Lane for the first time in two seasons at Phoenix, where he’s won three races.

In preparation for the season finale, all three national series will run a full practice session Friday (5:35 p.m. ET, TruTV, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) ahead of Busch Light Pole Qualifying  on Saturday (5 p.m. ET, TruTV, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Martin Truex Jr. started from pole position last year, his final fulltime race.

Title on the Line: JR Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing Collide in Phoenix Finale

As has been the case for so much of the season, the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series title may simply just come down to who can better JR Motorsports’ rookie sensation Connor Zilisch who has already claimed 10 victories this year.

Connor Zilisch, driver of the #88 WeatherTech Chevrolet, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series Blue Cross NC 250 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 04, 2025 in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo by Jordan Bank/Getty Images)

The 19-year-old driver of the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet will be contending with a formidable threesome, however, in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship race (7:30 p.m. ET on CW Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) that includes his teammate and the reigning series champion Justin Allgaier (No. 7 JRM Chevrolet), their JRM teammate, rookie Carson Kvapil (No. 1 JRM Chevrolet) and Zilisch’s best friend, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love (No. 2 RCR Chevrolet) in an all-Chevrolet battle for the big trophy.

Should Zilisch or Kvapil win the title, they would become only the fourth rookie to do so.

“It’s really cool to be in the Championship 4 with my teammates Justin and Carson,” Zilisch said. “It’s going to be a crazy busy weekend in Phoenix but I’m glad to be doing it alongside them.

“We just need to execute the day and make the most of it on Saturday. We’ve made sure that everything we do is calculated and are accounting for any and all situations to be prepared for anything.

“Before the season started my crew chief Mardy Lindley had me fill out a points and win prediction. I had us winning four races so to sit here today with 10 wins and winning the Regular Season Championship plus locking into the Championship 4 early, this No. 88 team has certainly outdone my expectations.”

Of the four championship contenders, only the veteran Allgaier owns a Phoenix trophy, winning at the track in Fall, 2019 and Spring, 2017. He finished runner-up to non-Playoff driver Riley Herbst last November to claim his first career title.

Allgaier (fifth) and Love (ninth) are the only ones among the championship-eligible foursome to score top-10 finishes in the most recent race at Phoenix in March. And Allgaier led a race best 130 of the 208 laps.

Phoenix has proven to be a strong venue for Love as well, who is a perfect three-for-three in top-10 showings at the track including a runner-up finish in his series debut there in Spring, 2023.

There are four other former Phoenix winners in the field, including Aric Almirola, who won this Spring, Front Row Motorsports Chandler Smith, who won in Spring, 2024, JR Motorsports Sammy Smith (2023) and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones (2020).

The last two Phoenix races have featured last-lap passes for the win.

Not only is there the highly-contested driver’s title to be decided Saturday, but there is a slightly different look for the owner’s championship too. It will include Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 19 Toyota – driven by Almirola – and RCR’s No. 21 Chevrolet driven by Austin Hill in addition to the JR Motorsports cars driven by Zilisch and Kvapil.

This race also marks a significant time in series history as longtime sponsor Xfinity ends an 11-year tenure.

Practice is set for 4:35 p.m. ET (CW App) on Friday, followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying is Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET (CW App). Joe Gibbs Racing’s William Sawalich is the defending race pole-winner.

Corey Heim’s Historic Season Faces Its Final Test in Phoenix

As with the NASCAR Xfinity Series, one driver has dominated the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series season and comes to Phoenix racing for his first major NASCAR Championship. TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim has turned in a season for the record books and hopes to top it off Friday in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Corey Heim, driver of the #11 Safelite Toyota, waits on the grid prior to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on July 25, 2025 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)

Heim will be competing for his maiden title against reigning series champion and defending race winner, ThorSport Racing’s Ty Majeski (No. 98 Ford), along with Halmar-Friesen Racing’s Kaden Honeycutt (No. 52 Toyota) and McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Tyler Ankrum (No. 18 Chevrolet).

The season statistics mightily favor Heim, but as record-breaking a season as he his having, he has never won at Phoenix. Heim comes into the title race with a record 11 wins including six in the last eight races alone and is the only driver in series history to have a streak of 10 straight top-three finishes. Only one other driver in the Championship Four, Ankrum (one) has a win this year.

The 23-year-old Georgia native and driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota has led more than 40 percent of all laps this season– an all-time record. Heim’s streak of leading laps in 25 consecutive races is not only a record, but should he lead a lap Friday he would become the first driver to lead every single race in a season. He is six laps shy of breaking former champion Mike Skinner’s single season record of 1,533 laps led (1996).

Heim scored his best finish at Phoenix last year, finishing runner-up to Majeski by almost four-seconds.

Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith is the only other fulltime driver with a victory at Phoenix (2021).

Practice for the race is Thursday night at 7:35 p.m. ET with Kennametal Pole Qualifying on Friday at 3:35 p.m. ET (FS2). Majeski won pole position for last year’s race en route to the series championship.