The field for the Championship 4 is set for Phoenix Raceway, and one of the four – former NASCAR Cup Series champs Joey Logano and Chase Elliott, and first-time champ hopefuls Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain – will be crowned the 2022 series champ.
The race is set for 3 p.m. Sunday and will be broadcast on NBC.
Logano, the 2018 NASCAR champ, won his way into the Championship 4 with a win at Las Vegas on Oct. 16.
His 2022 appearance in the Championship 4 is his fifth overall.
At Phoenix, Logano has two career wins in 27 starts and an average finish of 13.1.
“Yeah, I feel great about our chances,” Logano said. “Honestly, I don’t really care who else is in. It’s about the No. 22 team winning a second title. That’s what it’s about. We just got to do our job and stay focused on us. Like I said, today we did what we needed to do to be prepared. We’ve had three weeks to think about our race car and how we want to play the race out, how we want to run practice. We’ve had the opportunity to really, really dive deep into Phoenix, so we’ll take that to our advantage and move on.”
Bell won his way into his first-ever Championship 4 last week at Martinsville. A 2021 playoff qualifier, Bell is having his best season as a Cup Series driver, with three wins (New Hampshire, Charlotte ROVAL, Martinsville), 12 Top 5s and 19 Top 10s.
He doesn’t have a good track record at Phoenix, though. In five career starts at the one-mile track, he has just two Top 10s and an average finish of 17.0.
“It’s just one race,” Bell said. “Like Adam (Stevens) said, whoever brings the best car and executes the best is going to win the race and the championship. Whatever happens, happens, and I’m very proud to be in this position. The sport is all about people. Fortunately for me I ended up with the best people around me.”
Chastain is also making a Championship 4 debut. He raced his way into the field last week at Martinsville with a dramatic last-lap wall-banging move that propelled him past Denny Hamlin ahead of the checkered flag to finish fourth.
His previous career-best season Cup Series points finish was 20th, accomplished last year.
This season, Chastain has notched two victories (COTA and Talladega-1) and has finished runner-up five times. In total he put up career-highs in wins (two), Top 5 (14) and Top 10 (20) finishes this season, as well as a career-high in laps led at 692 laps out front.
Chastain has made eight starts at Phoenix Raceway in the NASCAR Cup Series, posting one Top 10 finish. His average finish at Phoenix is 20.5, fourth among the 2022 Championship 4.
Earlier this season at Phoenix, he started 17th and finished runner-up to Chase Briscoe – his best performance at the one-mile track.
“If you just go back two years, the fall Southern 500 at Darlington, I went there with Spire Motorsports. They bought sticker tires for the whole weekend. We had a podcast sponsoring us through T-shirts that we sold that didn’t even have my name on it. I got to go race the fall Darlington race in a Cup car to keep building my notebook. We won our race. We beat the car we wanted to beat that day. That was two years ago. We came back this year and we had chances to win both Darlington races last fall. In the 42 we had chances to win the Southern 500,” Chastain said.
“If you go back two calendar years, I was the guy five laps down, seven laps down, something like that. Those were good nights. Those were wins in our book. Those moments, those nights, and those races, those laps, are a big reason why I feel like I’m able to do what I can do now,” he said.
Elliott, the regular-season champion, has put up five wins, 12 Top 5s and 20 Top 10s, and has led 857 laps.
The 2020 Cup Series champ has made 13 series starts at Phoenix Raceway, posting one win (2020), five Top 5s, eight Top 10s and a pole. His average finish at Phoenix is a strong 10.7, best among the 2022 Championship 4.
Earlier this season at Phoenix, he started 19th and finished 11th.
“Yeah, looking forward to getting home and working through what we need to work through to get ready for Phoenix. Certainly, we’ll be ready to go the best we know how next Sunday,” Elliott said.
Share
Chris Graham
