In all three NASCAR series, will the champion win the race or will someone else take the final checkered flag of 2023?
Mark Kristl: The respect that the field shows the drivers in Championship 4 plays a big role in the outcome of these races. Still, Sammy Smith impressed with his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Phoenix Raceway earlier this season. Smith is really good at this track and doesn’t feel like he has any teammates in Phoenix after his collision with John Hunter Nemechek at Martinsville Speedway. Joe Gibbs Racing is also good in Phoenix, so Smith will win the race. He will be the only one to win outside of Championship 4 of the respective series in Phoenix.
Andrew Stoddard: The top class tends to rise to the top on championship weekend, and 2023 will be no different. To win a championship in all three series at Phoenix, a race win is required.
Caleb Barnes: Every year I ask myself: Is this the year the NASCAR Cup Series champion doesn’t win the race? But every year the eventual champion takes the win. This year’s Cup Championship 4 also looks strong. In the Xfinity Series, winner and champion have remained the same since the finale moved to Phoenix, and this year’s lineup will likely exclude the rest of the field. The Truck Series will be the one that has another winner and champion. While the final four have shown speed at various tracks throughout the year, the entire truck field has been unpredictable as to who will compete at speed each week. Additionally, since playoffs were introduced in the Truck Series in 2016, every odd-numbered year has featured a different race winner and champion.
Luke Glover: It’s hard to imagine a non-playoff contender winning the Cup final, considering it’s never happened before. The group will be strong this year too. William Byron is the most recent winner at Phoenix, Kyle Larson led the most laps in this race and won there in 2021, Ryan Blaney has finished in the top five in the desert four times in a row and Christopher Bell will have something to prove. I expect the same in the Xfinity race, especially with drivers like Nemechek, Justin Allgaier and Cole Custer in the hunt. The Truck Series has the best chance of a non-championship winner as I have my eye on Zane Smith and Christian Eckes. But even then, the Championship 4 of this series has a good chance of winning.
Taylor Kornhoff: None of the Truck Championship 4s won in Phoenix and none of them ran particularly well there. Ben Rhodes only leads the statistics because he raced the longest. However, in the Cup and Xfinity Series, the champion wins the race.
NASCAR will use Use a different tire than in the spring for the Cup season finale in Phoenix. Does it make sense to use a different tire?
Glover: It’s the right move, but don’t expect drastic changes. The tire was used at New Hampshire Motor Speedway over the summer, a solid race that saw 13 lead changes. However, there are many unknowns between New Hampshire and Phoenix, so questions need to be answered. Phoenix has had mediocre racing in the next-gen car, so a softer tire is a step in the right direction. However, further aerodynamic and mechanical adjustments need to be made for a better race.
Barnes: A different, softer tire is always a good decision, but it serves more as a band-aid. Last week’s tire at Martinsville certainly seemed to improve the race, but tires can only wear to a certain extent. A better way to promote tire wear is to give cars more horsepower. The more motorists have potentially spinning tires, the more tires can wear out, hopefully leading to different tire saving strategies for drivers and teams.
Stoddard: The Cup Series short track product has lost some of its luster with the next-gen car, so changing the tire compound is a good start. Greater tire wear could lead to more overtaking maneuvers and more pedestrians on long runs, meaning better racing for drivers and fans.
Kornhoff: Well, the product at Martinsville with the new tire was better than the previous Next Gen races there, and it’s starting to look a little more like the Gen 6 out there. Based on this, there is reason to hope that this will be a good step.
Kristl: Although the intention is to make tire protection more important, it is not wise to launch a different tire combination at Phoenix. It would be the baseball equivalent of using worn baseballs. Teams are preparing to play the World Series with the same baseball they have played all season. Teams likely prepared for Phoenix with the tire used in the spring event. Now NASCAR is changing something, while there were no tire problems at the spring event. It looks like NASCAR wants to add even more drama to the winner-take-all moment in Game 7.
Denny Hamlin advocated for NASCAR to increase the power of short-track racing cars to 750 hp. Do you agree with Hamlin?
Barnes: Not just on short tracks, NASCAR should consider providing teams with 750 horsepower or more at all tracks. While more horsepower won’t necessarily fix all aerodynamic deficiencies, more engine does temper the racing momentum we’ve come to know in recent years. If a rider came back earlier and looked at old races, he had to lift up earlier when he was running tight on aerodynamics, but was still able to recover well and not lose too much ground, and was even able to go deeper into the next corner and to put everything back in order at once. Now, when drivers have to lift after a car, they lose a lot of ground, even some positions. My only concern with the performance increase – or other changes to the next-gen car – is that overtaking on single-lane racetracks will still be just as difficult if all the cars are still doing the same speed and lap time.
Kristl: Absolutely! What would be the worst thing that would happen: short-distance racing with no overtaking maneuvers on the track? We already had that at the 2022 Martinsville spring race. Nobody wants that result again, and Denny Hamlin, a veteran team owner and veteran driver, wouldn’t be so passionate if he thought it was a step in the wrong direction. Martinsville was good, but NASCAR could make short track racing even more popular with fans with Hamlin’s proposal.
Kornhoff: I agree. The next generation car is too planted, even with downforce and tire changes. Having more horsepower for drivers to play with is most likely the best move.
Glover: Absolutely, let’s make it 850! Seriously, 750 horsepower is definitely needed, and something Roush-Yates Engines CEO Doug Yates advocated for in a Zoom press conference in the spring. This reduces the margin for error, making it easier for cars to pass. Is it the biggest problem? No. Hamlin was also right to say that the transmission needs to be repaired. All of these things add up on a small and large scale: the tire size and structure, the horsepower, the gear reduction and the ride height. Tweaking them to find the right combination is something NASCAR needs to do.
Who was the biggest breakout driver in NASCAR in 2023?
Kornhoff: Nemechek. I don’t see many people talking about it – maybe it’s because he’s driving for Joe Gibbs Racing in the best gear available – but his season deserves some respect. He has the most wins of any driver in any top three series this year, he has led well over 1,000 laps and finished in the top 10 in almost 80% of races this year. These are legendary numbers in any series and any car . The Legacy Motor Club will have a hard time with Toyota from the start, but next year they will probably be very happy with the No. 42 car.
Glover: Two drivers caught my eye. One of them is Sam Mayer. When Mayer won just his seventh truck start at the age of 17, expectations and optimism immediately rose. Since I started working full-time at JR Motorsports, these expectations have not been fulfilled. Mayer achieved good results throughout the first half of the season, but was still just off the leading riders. But since his Road America triumph, he’s flipped the script and shown everyone he’s got what it takes. The other is Blaney. We all knew Blaney could win races, but could he do it consistently, finish the job and overcome mistakes? He has answered the call since the playoffs began and seemed like all the drivers were excited when he entered the Cup scene. Now both have a chance to win a championship.
Kristl: Chris Buescher emerged as a three-time winner, making it to the Round of 8 and setting career highs in all statistical categories. What really caught my attention, however, was that he wasn’t flashy. He caused no controversy, he said nothing that made headlines, and he stayed the course, winning three races at three different types of tracks. Additionally, he was in the top 16 in points throughout the season. He neither won nor failed; He ran consistently and brought RFK Racing back to winning ways.
Barnes: Over the course of this season, Carson Hocevar has evolved from an irresponsible kid tearing up equipment to a trustworthy young driver behind the wheel of a Cup car. Yes, Byron’s six wins were a surprise to many, and Nemechek proved to be an inevitable contender in the Xfinity Series on a weekly basis. Just this spring, Hocevar won his first race at Texas Motor Speedway, then turned around and tried to ruin Taylor Gray at Martinsville. Hocevar took a lot of criticism over the next few weeks, but it seems a conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. over the summer really had an impact on the No. 42 driver. After earning his first Truck win, Hocevar impressed in his first Cup start in the No. 7. That race, along with his great runs in the Xfinity Series throughout the summer, propelled Hocevar into the Cup car for this second half of the season No. 42. While we’ll see what Hocevar is capable of as a full-time Cup driver next year, he’s made a lightning-quick jump from Truck contender to possible Cup contender in 2024.
Stoddard: The 2023 season was a coming out party for Buescher. After just two wins and one playoff appearance in his last seven full-time Cup campaigns, Buescher has captured three checkered flags and advanced to the Round of 8 of the playoffs. Buescher’s surge in performance could be the start of something big at RFK in the coming years. It’s still a long way from its peak in 2005, but RFK could be the best Ford team in the future, and Buescher is a big part of that.
About the author More articles from
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the start of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the editor of the site’s ARCA Menards Series. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud graduate of the University of Dayton.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch as an iRacing employee in May 2022. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond and VCU. He has a new job as a sports communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Luken Glover entered the frontstretch scene in 2020. He has been an avid NASCAR fan for most of his life, following in the footsteps of his grandfather who used to help former team owner Junie Donlavey in his garage. Glover covers news on the site and took over “The Underdog House” column in 2021. In addition to being a college junior, his hobbies include volunteering at church, playing basketball and tennis, racing go-karts, and helping out at his high school alma mater.
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