What Happened?
William Byron qualified on pole and proceeded to lead over 300 laps en route to a clutch victory at Martinsville Speedway to lock himself into the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 for the third consecutive season..
The regular season champion had to move Ryan Blaney, who was hung up by the lapped car of Ty Dillon, to do so with about 50 laps to go. The win is the third of the season for Byron, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, as he entered Sunday’s (Oct. 26) race in must-win situation.
What Really Happened?
I don’t know if we’ve ever entered a championship race where we genuinely don’t know who could come out as the champion.
Denny Hamlin seems like the favorite based on his experience in these situations, but that big ol’ goose egg in the title column of his stats suggests otherwise. Chase Briscoe has won at Phoenix Raceway before, but it was in the spring and that was in his sophomore season. Kyle Larson has a championship, but ever since his second attempt at the Memorial Day Double went about as bad as you could imagine, he hasn’t seemed like a true favorite.
So what about Byron? He won the regular season championship. If we ran a full-season points system, he’d be entering the finale with an 11-point lead over second. He has three wins on the season, all wildly spread out from each other. With the momentum he now has from winning Martinsville, does that make him the favorite then?
Well, if he is, then winning Martinsville is a poor example to use. The last four races have all seen walk-off winners in the penultimate race of the season to punch their ticket into the Championship 4. Only once has the driver who won Martinsville gone on to win the championship, and that was Blaney in 2023.
Byron is a former Phoenix winner himself, which helps him greatly. But like Briscoe, that win also came in the spring.
So is Byron the championship favorite? I don’t know, maybe?
This is what I mean. Usually, we can enter the championship race with some idea of who might be the favorite (whether they win it or not is a different story though). This year? It genuinely seems like a toss-up on who could win it all.
Just the way this knockout-style playoff format intended to make it.
But at the same time, I don’t think there’s a single driver in the Championship 4 who isn’t “deserving” of the title. You could make a case for maybe Briscoe, but even still, that feels like a stretch.
My advice? Enjoy the show at Phoenix. Who knows what kind of outcome we’ll get.
Who Stood Out?
A caution for a spinning Erik Jones fell in the middle of a pit cycle, allowing some new faces to shuffle to the front.
One of those people was Ross Chastain, who spent the final 100+ laps in the top five, finishing third when all was said and done.
I was surprised to find out that Martinsville is Chastain’s first top five since his Coca-Cola 600 win at Charlotte Motor Speedway back in May. In that 22-race span, Chastain has only mustered four top 10s, with none of them translating to top fives.
Chastain had by far his best run in a long time at The Paperclip on Sunday, and it’s good momentum to take into the season finale and the offseason — especially when a generational talent is due to become his teammate next season.
Who Fell Flat?
Sunday was … uh … not good for two championship hopefuls.
Hamlin and Briscoe, the two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers who locked themselves into the Championship 4, both failed to finish at Martinsville, killing any and all momentum the two of them had leading up to the championship race.
What should concern the two of them is that both of their causes for failing to finish were engine issues..
Briscoe was the first to drop out, doing so after reporting his engine troubles on lap 296. Hamlin followed not even 40 laps later with engine issues of his own. To make matters worse, fellow Toyota driver Riley Herbst also failed to finish the race due to engine issues.
That leaves not just JGR, but Toyota as a whole with questions on whether or not their engines will be reliable for Hamlin and Briscoe as both of them chase their first championship next week. With a statistical 50% chance to win the title, a triple-failure of engines for Toyota and Toyota Gazoo Racing will surely have the manufacturer making sure everything is taken care of to give its drivers the best chance at taking home the title.
Paint Scheme of the Race
Call it a throwback. Call it some sort of knockoff Halloween paint scheme.
Either way, Hamlin and the No. 11 team brought an absolute heater of a paint scheme to the Paperclip.
Celebrating King’s Hawaiian’s 75th anniversary, JGR reimagined Hamlin’s typical King’s Hawaiian paint scheme with a more vibrant orange, with dandelion/golden yellow baked onto the hood (pun intended), roof and decklid, with a thin white line separating the two similar colors. The paint scheme is complete with a clearly defined white number outlined in orange.
Hamlin started fifth, but the aforementioned engine issues relegated him to a dismal 35th-place finish.
What’s Next?
White flag, one more time around in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Phoenix Raceway for the championship-deciding race. Our Championship 4 is set, but only one will walk away with the Bill France Cup. Joey Logano is the defending winner of the race, but he will not be able to defend his championship due to his elimination in the Round of 8.
Coverage for the NASCAR Cup Series championship race begins at approximately 3 p.m. next Sunday, Nov. 2. Television coverage remains on NBC (check your local listings), while radio coverage remains on Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Channel 90.
Follow @AnthonyDamcott on X.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter. He has also assisted with short track content and social media, among other duties he takes/has taken on for the site. In 2025, he became an official member of the National Motorsports Press Association. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight coordinator in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.