The NASCAR Cup Sequence Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway — it does not want a sponsor’s identify and the selection of laps or miles concerned.
This race is greater than that and formally will wrap up the 2024 season on Sunday in Avondale, Ariz.
However how did we get right here?
With such a lot at stake final weekend at Martinsville and the six drivers both having to win (Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott) or level their means into the sector (William Byron, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson) as some of the two drivers filling the Championship 4 box, it got here as little or no marvel that controversy ensued on the finish.
In fact, Blaney pulled off the exhausting phase by way of successful on the half-mile monitor and advancing for the second one directly yr with a penultimate-race victory at Martinsville.
Closing yr, his grasp efficiency resulted in his first Cup name, and the No. 12 Ford racer hopes to hold that momentum to the Phoenix-area wasteland Sunday.
What went on in the back of him is any other tale solely, and it did not spread with out penalties.
The scenes performed out dramatically within the ultimate laps: The Chevrolets of Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon ran two-wide in the back of Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy, typically competitors at the monitor however bowtie brethren within the final circuits that will come to a decision if a minimum of one Camaro would compete for a name.
It is going to, however just one.
Amazingly, Byron made it in as the one Hendrick or Chevy journey to get in, nevertheless it did not come with out a lengthy wait whilst NASCAR Race Keep an eye on pieced in combination what went on.
After all, Byron complex with name hopes, whilst Christopher Bell’s had been dashed as he was once deemed to have violated a security law — using the wall like Chastain in 2022, in spite of the Joe Gibbs Racing racer no longer passing one automobile for place — and most likely getting a spice up from fellow Toyota motive force Bubba Wallace.
Jeff Gordon, Hendrick’s vp since 2022, mentioned he did not imagine Chastain and Dillon arrange a Chevy roadblock to offer protection to Byron’s place. He noticed it as exhausting racing.
“However (they had been) additionally racing to advance and racing to make sure to’re acutely aware of what others are doing and what they’d at the line,” mentioned Gordon, a four-time Cup winner.
“That suggests you do not move destroy someone or flip someone. You simply give them a little bit bit more space and leniency. And I think like that is what I noticed from a Chevy aspect of items.”
Chastain, Dillon and Wallace were not penalized Tuesday, however participants in their groups had been. That leads us to what may just move on Sunday, however traditionally hasn’t came about in a championship surroundings.
Right through, say, the overall 25 laps of the 312-lapper, what occurs when Byron is out entrance with 3 Hendrick vehicles flanking him like a wall with Reddick, Blaney or Staff Penske teammates Joey Logano or Blaney bearing down?
Blaney completed moment in Arizona a yr in the past to win his first name and is the favourite from the oddsmakers in Las Vegas to win Sunday, with eradicated racer Bell conserving the second-best odds.
And whilst shenanigans happening within the ultimate laps to break championship goals won’t were a factor to this point, it no doubt may well be in a fast moving recreation the place unexpected strikes or a slip-up would possibly destroy a relatively evident consequence.
Glance no additional again in historical past to final Sunday.
–Box Stage Media
