The Championship 4 cut line for Sunday’s (Oct. 26) NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway is simple: Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin are locked in, and both Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson look poised to join them unless the winner comes from below the cut line.
If William Byron, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney or Chase Elliott win this weekend, it’ll likely be Bell and Larson in a battle for that final playoff spot on points. And with one point separating the two, lap 500 could come right down to the wire, just as it did last year.
The beauty about this weekend’s race is that any of the eight drivers could win. They rank first through eighth for the most points scored at Martinsville in the Next Gen car, and every driver but Briscoe is a former Cup winner at the track. Furthermore, four of the eight (Elliott, Blaney, Logano and Bell) have won a Martinsville Round of 8 race in the past to clinch a spot in the Championship 4.
Throw in Hamlin (a six-time Martinsville winner) and Briscoe (no finishes worse than 15th in the Next Gen car) playing spoiler in the hopes of shutting the must-win drivers out of victory lane, and you have the perfect recipe for an intense showdown for the penultimate race of the 2025 season.
Who will point their way in, and will anyone win their way in? Let’s examine the six championship hopefuls, and their prior history at Martinsville in this car.
Christopher Bell (37 above cut line)
Lost in Ross Chastain’s Hail Melon three years ago was Bell’s clutch victory at Martinsville in a must-win situation to make the Championship 4.
Outside of that victory, however? He’s been hit-or-miss. He’s scored an average of 27.7 points and posted an average finish of 14.7 in the seven Next Gen Martinsville races, both of which rank last out of the six drivers hoping to earn a spot on Sunday. He also finished a mediocre 22nd in this race a year ago to get eliminated despite entering the race 29 points above the cut line.
The good news for Bell is that he won the pole and finished runner-up in the spring, so the No. 20 team looks to have figured things out. But if there’s a winner below the cut line and the final spot comes down to a points race, Bell might find himself in trouble against Larson.
| Race | Finish | Laps Led | Points Scored |
| 2022 Spring | 20 | 0 | 26 |
| 2022 Fall | 1 | 150 | 51 |
| 2023 Spring | 16 | 0 | 21 |
| 2023 Fall | 7 | 0 | 36 |
| 2024 Spring | 35 | 0 | 2 |
| 2024 Fall | 22 | 0 | 20 |
| 2025 Spring | 2 | 25 | 38 |
| Averages | 14.7 | – | 27.7 |
| Totals | – | 175 | – |
Kyle Larson (+36)
It sounds hard to believe considering how his Cup career at Martinsville started, but Larson has become automatic at the track with the Next Gen car. He scored his first Martinsville win in the spring of 2023, and he’s posted six consecutive finishes of sixth or better in the last three years of Martinsville races.
His average finish of 5.4 in the Next Gen car ranks second only to Blaney, and Larson ranks third behind Blaney and Elliott in points scored per race.
If the No. 5 team’s race goes off without a hitch, Larson should be the favorite to advance, whether it be on points or by winning. But as we saw at the last lap at Talladega Superspeedway, not everything goes according to plan.
| Race | Finish | Laps Led | Points Scored |
| 2022 Spring | 19 | 0 | 18 |
| 2022 Fall | 2 | 68 | 50 |
| 2023 Spring | 1 | 30 | 43 |
| 2023 Fall | 6 | 0 | 31 |
| 2024 Spring | 2 | 86 | 53 |
| 2024 Fall | 3 | 71 | 46 |
| 2025 Spring | 5 | 0 | 35 |
| Averages | 5.4 | – | 39.4 |
| Totals | – | 255 | – |
William Byron (-36)
Is 36 below the cut line a must-win situation for Byron? On paper it is, but if either Bell or Larson fall out of the race early and end the day with just a couple of points, Byron and the drivers behind him would have a realistic shot at advancing on points.
But unless that happens, the No. 24 team will have to plan on winning the race. It’s something Byron has done twice, and he’s the only driver alongside Blaney to have multiple wins in the Next Gen car at Martinsville. But both of Byron’s Martinsville wins came in the spring, and in the last three years, he’s either won the race, run in the back half of the top 10 or been a complete nonfactor for the win. He’ll need a fast car and a flawless race to have a chance, and there are a few drivers behind him in the points he’ll still have to reckon with.
| Race | Finish | Laps Led | Points Scored |
| 2022 Spring | 1 | 212 | 58 |
| 2022 Fall | 7 | 0 | 30 |
| 2023 Spring | 23 | 0 | 15 |
| 2023 Fall | 13 | 0 | 24 |
| 2024 Spring | 1 | 88 | 46 |
| 2024 Fall | 6 | 51 | 46 |
| 2025 Spring | 22 | 0 | 15 |
| Averages | 10.4 | – | 33.4 |
| Totals | – | 351 | – |
Joey Logano (-38)
Martinsville has been a solid and consistent track for Logano in this car. He has a pair of runner-up finishes, a top 10 in every race and a boatload of points scored per weekend.
That’s all fine and dandy if he’s trying to point in his way in, but he’ll need to win in all likelihood, and he’s led the fewest laps at Martinsville in the Next Gen car among the six drivers who haven’t clinched a spot in the Championship 4.
Each year, Logano has a good car, but not a great car that is capable of challenging for the win. He’s led more than 1,000 laps at Martinsville in his Cup career, but it’s been a long time since his Martinsville win, which came all the way back in 2018.
But as we saw last year and in this year’s Round of 12, Logano has always seemed to find a way to stay alive in the playoff race, even when his back is against the wall. Can he work his magic once again to make the Championship 4 for a record seventh time?
| Race | Finish | Laps Led | Points Scored |
| 2022 Spring | 2 | 0 | 46 |
| 2022 Fall | 6 | 0 | 35 |
| 2023 Spring | 2 | 25 | 35 |
| 2023 Fall | 5 | 0 | 41 |
| 2024 Spring | 6 | 84 | 42 |
| 2024 Fall | 10 | 0 | 29 |
| 2025 Spring | 8 | 13 | 39 |
| Averages | 5.6 | – | 38.1 |
| Totals | – | 122 | – |
Ryan Blaney (-47)
Even though he was off at Martinsville in the spring, Blaney is the driver everyone will be watching this weekend. He’s the two-time defending winner of the race, and when faced with a must-win situation last year, he made a clutch pass on Elliott late in the race to take the lead and win.
He hasn’t led as many laps at the Paperclip as other drivers on this list, but he leads the entire field with a 4.6 average finish and a whopping 42 points scored per Martinsville race in this car.
The No. 12 team has always shown up in these situations, so the question isn’t if Blaney will contend; rather, it’s whether lightning will strike thrice.
| Race | Finish | Laps Led | Points Scored |
| 2022 Spring | 4 | 5 | 44 |
| 2022 Fall | 3 | 0 | 43 |
| 2023 Spring | 7 | 0 | 30 |
| 2023 Fall | 1 | 145 | 59 |
| 2024 Spring | 5 | 0 | 32 |
| 2024 Fall | 1 | 32 | 55 |
| 2025 Spring | 11 | 0 | 31 |
| Averages | 4.6 | – | 42.0 |
| Totals | – | 182 | – |
Chase Elliott (-62)
Sixty-two points below the cut line, Elliott is the only driver on this list that cannot mathematically point his way in; throw the points out the window.
Unfortunately for Elliott, he has done everything at Martinsville in the Next Gen car except win. His 557 laps led at Martinsville since 2022 is second only to Hamlin, and just like Logano, Elliott has paced more than 1,000 laps at Martinsville in his Cup career with just a single win to show for it.
That one win, however? It came in the penultimate race of the 2020 season in a must-win situation, and Elliott led 236 laps and gapped the second-place car by more than six seconds at the checkered flag.
He’s been in this situation before and pulled off the victory. Martinsville remains one of, if not his best track in Cup even in the midst of his winning slump since 2023. He’s led 40-plus laps in all but one Next Gen race at Martinsville, and that one race was his first race back after injuring his leg in a snowboarding accident.
| Race | Finish | Laps Led | Points Scored |
| 2022 Spring | 10 | 185 | 47 |
| 2022 Fall | 10 | 54 | 45 |
| 2023 Spring | 10 | 0 | 27 |
| 2023 Fall | 17 | 83 | 20 |
| 2024 Spring | 3 | 64 | 49 |
| 2024 Fall | 2 | 129 | 45 |
| 2025 Spring | 4 | 42 | 46 |
| Averages | 8.0 | – | 39.9 |
| Totals | – | 557 | – |
Elliott, just like the other five drivers on this list, easily has the pedigree to leave with the win. But it’s six drivers fighting for the final two spots at Phoenix Raceway, and it’s eight playoff drivers — and the eight best drivers at Martinsville, no less — trying to control their playoff destiny.
Just as it should be.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf