The mythical Phoenix for which the capital of Arizona gets its name is a mighty bird that lives in cycles, and is most known for being consumed by fire and burning to ashes before rising and being born again. And in a metaphorical sense, the demise and regeneration of the Phoenix is akin to the sort of cycle a NASCAR driver experiences.
By now, all but four drivers' hopes of being a champion are now ashes, and those hopes are not to be reborn until next year. By the end of Sunday, three more drivers will see their ambitions immolate as well and their seasons.. But there will be one driver for whom the flames never come, and whom will instead ascend -- like a mighty bird of mythology -- where the glory of their being a NASCAR Cup Series champion will burn ever brightly.
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season concludes this Sunday with the season finale at Phoenix Raceway, where the Cup Series championship will be decided among the four drivers who have made it all the way through the NASCAR playoffs. For the Championship 4 drivers -- Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain, Joey Logano and Christopher Bell -- the objective is not an easy one, but it is simple: Whoever of the Championship 4 has the best finish in the season finale will be crowned the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series champion when the checkered flag waves.
How to watch the NASCAR Championship at Phoenix
- Date: Sunday, Nov. 6
- Location: Phoenix Raceway -- Avondale, Ariz.
- Time: 3 p.m. ET
- TV: NBC
- Stream: fuboTV (try for free)
What to watch
The Championship 4
Compared to past Championship 4s, the four drivers who will compete for the 2022 championship are a distinctly different group. It skews quite young, with an average age of 28.5 and 32-year old Joey Logano the only driver over the age of 30. What's more, there's also not a wealth of Championship 4 experience among the group. Ross Chastain and Christopher Bell both made the Championship 4 for the first time ever, with both doing so in just their third full seasons of Cup racing and after never finishing better than 20th or 12th in the championship standings respectively.
Theoretically, that gives an enormous advantage to Chase Elliott and Logano. Elliott is in the Championship 4 for the third year in a row, having won it all in 2020 before finishing fourth a season ago. Logano's Championship 4 berth is the fifth of his career, one of which ended in him winning the 2018 Cup Series championship.
It isn't as though Chastain and Bell have no Championship 4 experience, as they both were able to make Championship 4s in the Xfinity and Truck Series on their way to Cup. Bell made the Truck Series Championship 4 twice and won the series title in 2017, then made the Championship 4 in both of his full-time Xfinity seasons. Chastain made the Truck Series Championship 4 in 2019, finishing second in the final standings to Matt Crafton.
While previous experience in the Championship 4 is a factor to be considered, each driver's performance at Phoenix bears noting as well. Chastain had the best finish of the Championship 4 drivers in the spring race at Phoenix, finishing second compared to eighth for Logano, 11th for Elliott, and 26th for Bell. Elliott and Logano are both past winners at Phoenix, with Elliott winning the 2020 championship race and Logano winning twice -- in the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2020. Bell's best Phoenix finish, meanwhile, is ninth in both 2021 races.
Win the race, win the championship (?)
Theoretically, the NASCAR Cup Series champion only needs to be the best finisher out of all Championship 4 drivers no matter where in the field that is. Taking that to its logical extreme, a driver can finish 33rd and win the Cup championship so long as the other Championship 4 drivers finish 34th, 35th, and 36th. But throughout the existence of NASCAR's current playoff format, that's not the way things have worked.
The match race format of the finale demands the very best out of the Championship 4 drivers, and the Cup Series champion has responded in kind every year since 2014. In the current Cup Series playoffs format, every driver who has won the championship has done so by winning the season finale. And oftentimes, they've had to win because the circumstances of the race have called for it. Last year, for instance, all four Championship 4 drivers finished in the top five, with Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin finishing first, second, and third.
Whether or not it will take winning the race to win the championship, however, is up to the rest of the field. The 32 other drivers entered in Sunday's race will be looking to cap off their 2022 seasons with a victory, and some will look for their first wins of the season -- a victory that would make for 20 different winners on the year, breaking NASCAR's all-time record. Notable drivers still seeking their first win of the 2022 season include Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski.
There is also the matter of Kyle Larson, who has just cause for not relenting to the Championship 4. If Larson finishes better than Joey Logano, Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain, his No. 5 team will win the 2022 Owner's Championship despite Larson not being eligible for the driver's championship. That scenario is the culmination of an oddball 2022 owner's championship playoffs, which was not in-sync with the driver's championship due to the presence of the 23XI Racing No. 45 team instead of Team Penske's No. 12 team.
Phoenix partings
As is the case in each season finale, numerous partnerships -- drivers with teams, crew chiefs with drivers, crew members and sponsors with teams, and more -- will come to an end when the checkered flag flies and the haulers are loaded to head back to North Carolina for the offseason. Among the notable drivers, crew chiefs, and others in their final races together include the following:
- Kyle Busch is in his final race as the driver of Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 18 Toyota, which he has driven since 2008, before he moves to Richard Childress Racing to drive the No. 8 next season. This will also be Mars Inc.'s final race as a NASCAR sponsor.
- Tyler Reddick will run his final race as the driver of Richard Childress Racing's No. 8 Chevrolet before he moves to 23XI Racing to drive the No. 45 Toyota in 2023.
- Ty Dillon will run his final race as the driver of Petty GMS' No. 42 Chevrolet. Dillon will move to Spire Motorsports next season to drive the No. 77 Chevrolet.
- Greg Ives will work his final race as crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports' No. 48 Chevrolet before taking a new role within the company. Ives will be replaced next season by Blake Harris, who will work his final race as crew chief for Front Row Motorsports' No. 34 Ford.
- Jason Alexander will work his final race as crew chief for Richard Childress Racing's No. 3 Chevrolet before taking a new role within the company. Alexander will be replaced atop the pit box next season by Keith Rodden.
Pick to Win
(Odds via Caesars Sportsbook)
Chase Elliott (+240): Way back in my preseason predictions column, I had chosen Denny Hamlin to finally get over the hump and win the 2022 championship. I had planned to stick with that pick on principle, and that's what I would have done had Hamlin not been knocked out of the Championship 4 after Ross Chastain turned his car into a wall-wrapping missile to sneak into the title picture for the finale.
From start to finish, this has been a difficult season to handicap considering that no driver had clearly distinguished themselves as head and shoulders above the competition. But if anyone has shown that they're a cut above the rest of the field, it's Chase Elliott. His five wins are the most of any driver this season, and he was also the regular season champion by a wide margin, giving him a massive advantage in playoff points that has aided him in reaching this point.
If there is anything that gives me pause, it is that Elliott has had slow starts in each of the first three rounds of the playoffs -- He crashed out of the Southern 500 at Darlington, blew a tire and crashed while leading at Texas, and was a measly 21st at Las Vegas -- before coming alive towards the end of each round. But it's hard to argue against Elliott's season-long pedigree, and the fact that he won this race to win the championship in 2020 gives me reason to believe that he can do so again and become the latest multi-time NASCAR Cup Series champion.
