By Holly Cain and Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service

Kyle Larson sees parity among NASCAR Cup Championship 4 contenders

AVONDALE, Ariz.— Kyle Larson smiled at the question but quickly clarified that, just because he is the only driver in the Championship Four field to have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship previously, he does not necessarily consider himself a ‘favorite” this weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 driver, Kyle Larson speaks to the media during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway on October 30, 2025 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

There is no edge with this group of competitors, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion contends.

“Sure, we could all probably think up a reason of why there could be an edge that I would have,” said Larson, who drives the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “We’re all just so good and the teams are so good, I just don’t buy into anything like that.

“But we’ll see. I think having won before, I am a champion, so if I win another one, great. if I don’t, I’m still on the list. There’s that. But I don’t think that gives you any sort of competitive advantage.”

The 33-year-old Californian has three victories and topped 1,000 laps led in a season for the fifth time in his career. His 21 top-10 finishes are most among the four title contenders, and only Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe (15) has more top fives than Larson (14).

Although he hasn’t won a race since May 11 at Kansas, Larson is confident his team is in good shape, perhaps even peaking at the right time. He’s got 14 top-10 finishes in 22 Phoenix starts—a win to land him the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship and top-five finishes in four of the last five races at the desert one-miler.

“Just really excited to get on track and see if it’s what I expect it to be. But all four of us are going to be really good,” Larson said.

“We all have experience winning here,” he said pausing and smiling, “But I’d really like to win this fall.”

2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 driver, Chase Briscoe speaks to the media during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway on October 30, 2025 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

Chase Briscoe eyes title in first year with Joe Gibbs Racing

Last year at Phoenix Raceway, Chase Briscoe was reluctant to leave the race track.

He had just run his last race with his No. 14 team at Stewart-Haas Racing, not as part of the Championship 4 but as a driver for a team that was shutting its doors at season’s end.

It was the end of a dream for Briscoe and the beginning of another fraught with uncertainty.

“It is crazy, what a difference a year can make,” Briscoe said on Thursday during Championship 4 Media Day at the Phoenix one-mile track. “You go from being sad and down in the dumps… I don’t know, it’s just weird.

“We were the last people to leave last year, because we didn’t want it to end. We knew when we walked out of the tunnel that that group would never be together again. They literally kicked us out. They forced us to leave. We were here longer than the champions.

“But hopefully this year, I’m the one that’s here the longest again.”

In 2024, Briscoe won the Southern 500, the regular-season cutoff race. That earned him an unexpected berth in the Playoffs, but he was out in the Round of 12.

After moving to Joe Gibbs Racing this year, Briscoe has three victories, the most recent of which, at Talladega, propelled him into the Championship Race.

Briscoe’s Stewart-Haas group, however, hasn’t abandoned him.

“This week, all the 14 guys—we still have a group chat—they all were sending me motivational videos and trying to pump me up. (Former crew chief Richard) Boswell sent me a text this morning and sent me a video of all his kids wishing me good luck.”

Briscoe is the only one of the Championship 4 drivers who hasn’t raced for a NASCAR Cup title in the season finale. Even before he drove a JGR car for the first time, Briscoe knew expectations were high.

“I’ve raced against Joe Gibbs Racing, so I knew that, if everything went well, there was a very good likelihood that you’d be racing for a championship,” he said. “Year one—I’m not going to say it’s surprising, but it also I would say exceeded expectations for year one, for sure.

“It would mean a lot to do it in year one, just with everything, with Coach (Joe Gibbs) obviously taking a chance on me. Just to start our tenure off together winning a championship would be pretty cool, but it would certainly make the expectations going forward way harder.”

2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 driver, William Byron speaks to the media during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway on October 30, 2025 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

William Byron hopes third straight Champ 4 appearance is the charm

After a dramatic victory in the Round of 8 elimination race last Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, William Byron maintained a deliberately low profile on his trip to Phoenix Raceway for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Byron elected to fly commercial to the title race.

“I live 15 minutes from the commercial airport in Charlotte,” Byron explained. “I go TSA Precheck, keep my head down—it’s great. I love it. I love to get treated like a normal person, which I am.”

Normal people, however, don’t drive stock cars at breakneck speeds in hopes of securing a series title. That’s what Byron will do on Sunday, when he chases the Bill France Cup for the third year in a row.

In 2023, Byron won the pole for the Championship Race and dominated the early portions of the event. He won the first stage and led 95 laps but faded to fourth as the track cooled in the late afternoon.

As it turned out, that experience was also emblematic of the current season, where inauspicious circumstances often kept Byron from finishing as well as he ran during most of a particular event.

“We’ve learned the hard way this year that it’s never over,” Byron said. “I think that’s what sticks with me. I mean, honestly, until that guy throws the checkered flag, the race is not over.

“I’ve learned that the hard way this year, and that’s kind of fueled the way I prepared.”

In the first race of the Round of 8, Byron was running up front when Ty Dillon slowed in front of him, planning to enter pit road. Unable to avoid Dillon’s car, Byron slammed into it with a vicious impact that knocked him out of the race.

A week later at Talladega, Byron was running comfortably in the top 10 when he spun in the tri-oval a quarter-mile short of the finish line.

Those two incidents set up a must-win situation for Byron at Martinsville, a circumstance that allowed him to race without attention to points. That’s similar to the situation he’ll face Sunday at Phoenix, where the driver who finishes highest among the Championship 4 will claim the title. 

“I did look at the board during the race, and I’m like, ‘It’s so nice not to be worried about this BS,’” Byron said of the Martinsville run. “It’s not necessarily winner-take-all per se (at Phoenix), but it definitely is a third stage (is) what matters.

“You have to race the race, but the end is all that really matters.”

2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 driver, Denny Hamlin speaks to the media during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway on October 30, 2025 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Denny Hamlin ready to seize the opportunity in fifth Champ 4 try

Denny Hamlin looked relaxed and said he was relaxed, but the veteran and winningest driver of the 2025 season conceded this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Championship Race represents a significant milestone for him even as he’s already turned in a celebrated career.

The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota earned an emotional 60th victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway three weeks ago to claim one of the weekend’s four title bids, and at the age of 44 sees no better time than the present to add a NASCAR Cup Series championship to a legacy that ranks him 10th on the all-time wins list in a career highlighted with three Daytona 500 trophies.

“It feels a little bit different,” said Hamlin, whose best championship finish was runner-up to Jimmie Johnson in 2010. “Less rushed, I guess you could say, and simply because we did so much of our (preparation) for Phoenix before this week, so less rushed is the biggest difference I feel over previous (Championship Four bids).”

This marks Hamlin’s fifth time in the Championship race under this format—the first since 2021—and he arrives at Phoenix with twice as many wins (six) than anyone else in the championship field this season.

“I definitely feel optimistic about it,” he allowed, adding, “Just generally in a good headspace.”

Yes, Hamlin conceded, he probably has the most pressure on him as the oldest championship eligible driver. But he is ready.

“Is this my last opportunity or not?” Hamlin asked rhetorically. “Any format change coming that will be a bigger sample size should be better for me in general, but you just never know. You have to seize the moment that’s right there in front of you.

“So, I would certainly confirm the pressure is probably most on me because these guys know they’ve still got a long way to go (in their careers).”

2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship 4 driver, Connor Zilisch speaks to the media during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway on October 30, 2025 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

Xfinity contenders aren’t ready to concede title to Connor Zilisch

While the season statistics show NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie Connor Zilisch with a 10-win trophy haul—more than twice as many as any other championship-eligible competitors—when it comes to this weekend’s title-deciding Phoenix one-mile oval, the competition couldn’t be tighter.

Zilisch’s JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier is the only driver among the Xfinity Series Championship 4 with a previous win at Phoenix Raceway. He boasts two career Phoenix victories and won the title last year with a runner-up effort in a back-up car.

Another title contender, Richard Childress Racing driver Jesse Love, has never finished outside the top-10 in three series starts at Phoenix and boasts the best overall average result among the four drivers (also including JR Motorsports rookie Carson Kvapil) competing for the title Saturday.

“I know statistically as far as wins go, it looks very lopsided (in Zilisch’s favor), but we’re actually tied in amount of laps led, we (Allgaier’s team) have the most stage (wins) and we’ve really done all the right things this year,” Allgaier said.

Love, a native-Californian, finished runner-up in his first Xfinity Series race at Phoenix in 2023 and has never finished worse than ninth for a Championship 4 best 5.7 average finish at the track.

Although he has only a single win in 2025, he also likes his chances of hoisting the championship trophy this weekend. He was in contention to win last year’s race, too.

“I keep hearing about and know Justin is really good here, but I don’t think Justin’s any better than I am at this race track,” said Love, noting his chance at the Phoenix trophy ended last year after contact with Allgaier and race winner Riley Herbst on an overtime restart.

“He (Allgaier) has more experience than me, but I feel as confident as he does or probably more. This place is technical and it’s interesting and I’ve had a lot of races here, probably coming up on 10 (in assorted series) and between truck and Xfinity, I’ve never run outside the top-10 here, so there’s some confidence in that.

“I had to think about it all offseason, all year that I was a couple hundred feet from closing out last year with a win here before the caution came out and obviously, Justin put us in the fence after that. I know I can put myself in same position this year, and obviously the stakes are even higher, so there’s some good to come out of that.”

2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship 4 driver, Kaden Honeycutt speaks to the media during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway on October 30, 2025 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

Kaden Honeycutt playing with house money in Championship Race

The 2025 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series season has been a rollercoaster for Kaden Honeycutt—literally and emotionally.

Honeycutt was sixth in the series standings when Niece Motorsports released him after 16 races, citing information that Honeycutt had signed with a new team and manufacturer for 2026, though the specifics of the move were not released.

Preserving his eligibility for the Playoffs, Honeycutt found a fill-in ride with Youngs Motorsports for the 17th race of the season at Watkins Glen International.

Three days earlier, Halmar Friesen Racing had announced that Honeycutt would replace Stewart Friesen in the No. 52 Toyota for the rest of the season, starting Aug. 15 at Richmond Raceway. Friesen sustained season-ending injuries while driving a dirt modified race car in Drummondville, Quebec, Canada, in late July.

Honeycutt made it through two Playoffs rounds, advancing on a tiebreaker at Martinsville to Friday’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“Honestly, man, we’re playing with house money this weekend,” said Honeycutt, whose second-place finish at Martinsville was a career-best. “We’ve accomplished the goal of being here. That was the whole deal whenever me and (crew chief) Jimmy (Villeneuve) talked at Richmond.

“They just wanted to make it and have a fighting chance. The fact that we get to come here and mix it up, I feel like we’ve had speed all the Playoffs. We just get to have fun this weekend, treat it like a normal race and go out and try to win it.”

Honeycutt believes fate had a hand in his opportunity to race for the title. Admittedly, it’s an uphill battle against heavy favorite Corey Heim, an 11-time winner in a record-setting season.

“Everything happens for a reason,” he said. “I think the reason when Stewart got hurt was for me to fill in and do the job right for ‘em and show off how good this team is in this Playoff that he wasn’t able to do because of his injuries.

“I think that’s the reason why we’re here for that.”