(photo credit Leon Hammack)

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.

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.

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!