Holding a Pretty Wheel: It All Comes Down to 1 Race & 3 Title Standouts

By this time next week, the 2025 NASCAR season will be over, and the engines will quiet for another long winter. 

Three champions will be crowned, and there’s a good chance at least one of them will be a first-time title winner as each national series only has one former champion among the four drivers with a chance to take home this year’s biggest prize.

While a lot of laps remain before any driver can claim a title and anything can happen, it’s safe to say who’s the favorite to win in each series.

Here’s a look at who should win, why they can and why they can be beaten, along with who has the best shot to take them down.

Cup Series

Who should win: William Byron

Why he should: As much as speculating about full-season points is flawed (teams would approach the season as a whole differently under a full-season format), when you strip away the playoff points and resets, he’d be leaving Martinsville Speedway with the point lead. 

It’s not a massive lead; Byron would have an 11-point advantage over teammate Kyle Larson in non-playoff standings using the current points allotment per race. That’s not enough that the leader could cruise around all day mid-pack while saving fuel and tires, but it’s enough that a solid day would get it done.  

Byron has also led the most laps of any driver in 2025. Like the rest of the Championship 4, he has three wins to Denny Hamlin’s six, and he is slightly shy of the others in top fives and top 10s. Byron’s consistency is what got him to this point, and it’s why he should prevail.

Why he can: Byron stumbled into the final race of the Round of 8 with finishes of 25th or worse in the first two races. But with his back against the wall and needing to win to salvage his season, Byron dominated at Martinsville. He finished third at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last month, and NHMS is perhaps the most similar track to Phoenix Raceway in the playoffs. He also won the pole and finished sixth at Phoenix in the spring.

Byron also has momentum on his side. Hamlin finished 35th at Martinsville after an engine failure, and he also finished 24th at Talladega Superspeedway, one week after writing his ticket to the title race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Chase Briscoe also suffered an engine failure at Martinsville. Larson has been consistent but not brilliant throughout the playoffs.

Why he might not: Byron has consistency on his side, but a one-race championship is about performance. Yes, he delivered Sunday when he needed the win, but Byron has been a staple in the championship field since 2023 and hasn’t been a factor in the title race yet. He needs to up his game.

Who’s most likely to beat him: Briscoe. Briscoe has been red-hot in the playoffs, posting two wins and seven top 10s in the first nine races. He suffered an engine failure last week, but all signs point toward Toyota trying something that just didn’t work out, and its drivers will be back on their game at Phoenix.

Larson has been feast or famine this season, but he’s also the only driver in the championship race who has won a title before, which he clinched by winning at Phoenix. 

Hamlin has the most wins in the Cup Series this year, including two in the playoffs, but he hasn’t been as consistent as Briscoe since the postseason began. He also has the reputation of being in his own head when it comes to winning a title. He’s capable by all measures, but he has never been able to get it done.

Xfinity Series:

Who should win: Connor Zilisch

Why he should: Zilisch has had an insanely good 2025 season. Without the points resets, the only driver who could take the title from him would be his teammate and defending champion Justin Allgaier, and he’d need a perfect race to do it.

Zilisch has 10 victories this year. Since the playoffs began at Bristol Motor Speedway, he has only finished outside the top 10 at Talladega. And when it looked like he was down and out on Saturday (Oct. 25) at Martinsville after starting last and getting collected in a crash during the race, he bounced back to finish ninth.

Zilisch has three wins on flat ovals this year (Pocono Raceway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and World Wide Technology Raceway), though none of them is particularly similar to Phoenix. The only type of track he hasn’t won at yet is a 1.5-mile cookie-cutter intermediate; other than that, he’s won at road courses, short tracks, banked tracks, flat tracks and a superspeedway. Sure, Daytona International Speedway was a team effort, but Zilisch is plenty capable. He has posted one of the best full seasons in Xfinity Series history despite being injured twice, and he’s only 19. 

Why he can: Zilisch has great equipment and should be riding high after his Martinsville comeback. He has proven he can win anywhere, and he has improved on his first finish at every track he visited twice this year. Zilisch is proving to be a generational talent, and he’s done everything necessary to get to the title race so far.

Why he might not: He’s only 19. Zilisch doesn’t have the same level of experience as Allgaier, or even sophomore Jesse Love, who had playoff experience last year. Love is only 20 (and Carson Kvapil is 22) but that extra year could prove invaluable in handling the pressure cooker. 

Who’s most likely to beat him: Allgaier. Allgaier is the defending champion, he has years of experience under his belt, and while his win total isn’t in double digits, he has been plenty consistent in 2025. He’s led just 13 fewer laps than Zilisch.

Allgaier has the same equipment as Zilisch, knows how to protect it, and is also the only driver in the Championship 4 who has been there before. He’s got the right demeanor, the most experience and the ability to adapt and overcome obstacles. 

Love has one thing going for him in this year’s title race: he’s not racing his teammate for a title. That means that Richard Childress Racing can put everything possible behind Love, while JR Motorsports is spreading its resources among three teams. JRM has better stuff than RCR in general, but it will be every man for himself on the track for them, while Love has a teammate who can potentially help run interference for him.

Kvapil has had a solid year and has shown improvement. He gritted his way through the playoffs without a win to make the title race…but he hasn’t shown he can win at this level yet, especially under the pressure of a title race. He’s got a shot because everyone has a shot, but he’s a longer shot than the rest.

Truck Series:

Who should win: Corey Heim

Why he should: If you think Zilisch had a great season, take a look at Heim’s. He’s got 11 wins in 24 races, he’s only finished outside the top 10 four times all year, and he’s has led more than four times as many laps as the rest of the championship drivers combined.

Heim’s 11 wins are a Truck Series season record, and if you’re a fan of looking at full-season points, he’d have clinched the title weeks ago. His season average finish is 5.2. The only other Truck driver with an average inside the top 10 this year is Layne Riggs, and he missed the cut for the title race.

Much like Zilisch in Xfinity, if Heim doesn’t win, the champion will not be the best driver in the series this year.

Why he can: The only real competition Heim has had this year has been Riggs, and he’s out of the picture. The other three drivers in the championship mix have one win among them this year, thanks to Tyler Ankrum’s victory at Rockingham Speedway.

Heim also has the best equipment in the series this year, with backing from Toyota, which has contributed to his dominant season.

Why he might not: Heim is good at Phoenix, but he’s not unbeatable at Phoenix. He’s winless in three starts, with a top five and two top 10s. His ninth-place average is excellent, but it’s not as good as Kaden Honeycutt’s (8.0) in three starts.

It’s one track where Heim has not been dominant.

Who’s most likely to beat him: Ty Majeski. Majeski is the only driver in the title hunt with a Phoenix win, and it came in last year’s title race, when Majeski took his first CTS title. Majeski hasn’t been as strong this year as he was in 2024, but it’s hard to discount experience racing for a title, let alone winning one under this format.

Ankrum has had the best season of his seven-year CTS career, but nothing about it screams title spoiler. Honeycutt is in the same boat, though he also swapped rides midseason after an abrupt departure from Niece Motorsports. He has done an admirable job filling out the year for an injured Stewart Friesen, but he lacks experience; it’s his first full year of competition. Honeycutt has shown he can compete with equipment that’s stronger on paper, but he probably doesn’t have the full package this year.