AVONDALE, Ariz. — Cliff Daniels has a way of finding the bright side in most situations. The ever-unflappable crew chief and leader of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet managed to draw positives from Kyle Larson’s frustrating and abbreviated three-point day at Phoenix Raceway, one that cut the knees out from under the team’s once-mighty control of the NASCAR Cup Series Chase.
Daniels mentioned the team’s resilience, its inner strength and the opportunity to rebound in the season’s final three races — even with the severely scuffed No. 5 Chevy prematurely loaded on its hauler. Still, it’s a far closer title fight than it’s been in recent weeks, with Larson’s Sunday hardship opening the door for more drivers and teams to close the gap.
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It might be counterintuitive, but Daniels welcomes that, too. More competition? That’s the mark of a championship that’s well won.
“I mean, I think it’s great, and I think it’s no different than how it’s been all year long,” Daniels said. “I chuckle every time we try to crown a champion before the end of the year. Everybody tried to crown (Tyler) Reddick the champion early, and then they tried to crown Denny (Hamlin) the champion. Then they tried to crown us. You’re just like, there’s still three races left. There’s so many things that can change. Fantastic teams in the top 10, really, and I know it’s six or seven that are more in contention now? That’s what you want. That’s a great title fight. They’re the best teams on pit road, and it’s going to be a tough fight from here on out. So we’ve got to do our part. We’ve got to obviously not have days like this, but we’re not going to get lost in just the disappointment of what today is. We’re going to keep fighting for the next three.”
The Chase presented by Mobil 1 reached another crucial point in Sunday’s chaos-heavy Freeway Insurance 500, with a championship contest that’s suddenly a wide-open tilt heading to one of NASCAR’s most treacherous tracks. The pre-race anticipation about whether anyone could catch Larson in the postseason’s second half was answered with a resounding yes, after his early Chase dominance finally hit a snag in the Arizona desert. The measure of striking distance just got a bit shorter, and the championship is nowhere near being settled.
Everyone else in the 16-driver Chase field made double-digit gains on Larson’s lead in the Cup Series standings, which fizzled from a robust 49-point advantage to a mere five over new second-place runner Christopher Bell. “I mean, absolutely. I’m absolutely in it,” Bell said. “So, just got three more races to decide a champion. I think there’s a lot of us that are in it.”
Indeed, the “Mythical Top Six” threshold for serious championship contention made room for a seventh, with race winner Reddick recapturing the magic that made him one of the early anointed that Daniels mentioned. Reddick was the biggest gainer on a day full of them, cutting his 114-point deficit by more than half to just 56 points out, with a half-dozen of the sport’s elite ahead of him and within range.
Reddick’s Sunday celebration was especially jubilant with over-the-top burnouts and an impromptu catch-fence climb. “Making up for lost time,” he said, noting how he won five of the season’s first nine events, then went 23 races without in a sometimes-exasperating stretch. If there was ever a right time for his 23XI Racing No. 45 team to regain stride, it’s now — especially with the competition and plot both that much thicker.
“I think we’re going to stay on attack mode,” said No. 45 crew chief Billy Scott. “If it was maybe one competitor or maybe two that we were looking at contending with, it might be a different story. With so many people right there close together, every one of them are excellent, right? They could all be champions. I think you have to stay aggressive. If we can ultimately get the win, that’s going to go a long way.”
Larson’s lead was under constant threat Sunday, and his postseason perch was imperiled long before a downed tire and wall crunch ended his race 31 laps short of the full distance. Larson started a subpar 22nd in the 37-car field and was unable to approach the stage-points pay window as he wrestled a No. 5 Chevrolet with cantankerous handling.
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His closest challengers saw a golden opportunity, but the degree to which they cashed in varied. Reddick’s rebound denied that group the points premium for winning, tempering the rest of the gains for teams that capitalized instead of maximized, to borrow a phrase heard around the Cup Series garage.
Larson didn’t have the market cornered on Phoenix trouble. Ryan Blaney finished a strong second to Reddick, chopping his deficit from 85 points to just 40, though a pair of sluggish pit stops hampered his progress. Hamlin had his own issues — a slow stop in the Stage 1 break, contact with Shane van Gisbergen in a Stage 2 restart and ultimately a flat right-rear tire and speeding penalty while running fourth during the final stage. He gained 18 points but slid two spots to fourth in the standings. Joey Logano came closest to a maximum-points swing by sweeping the stage wins, but slipped to a sixth-place result Sunday after an 11.8-second pit stop on Lap 225 dropped him from first to fifth in the running order.
Logano still enjoyed a 48-point boost on a day he characterized as “must-win” before Saturday’s qualifying session, but his late fade from the top five subdued his outlook.
“Bittersweet is kind of the word that comes to mind,” said Logano, who led 84 of the 312 laps — second only to Bell’s race-best 85. “Had a car that was capable of winning if it was up front and led a bunch of laps, won a couple stages, so that’s a pretty solid piece there, and just had one hiccup, right? One mistake, and we lost some spots. Just gotta be perfect these days. That’s all it was. It’s just … there’s one little hiccup, so it is what it is. We still had a solid day, scored a bunch of points, and we’ll move on.”
Moving on this time of year means visiting the track that’s loomed for most teams as the wildest of the wild-cards on the 10-race postseason slate. Next Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) has the potential to jostle the Chase field even further with a surprise winner and/or the colossal crashes the 2.66-mile oval typically produces.
The pressure, though, might not be as staggeringly high, since some of the must-win desperation level has subsided. “No, not anymore,” Logano admitted. “No, we’re close now.”
Several others who faced daunting margins before Sunday’s showdown can say that, too.
“We’re in the hunt,” Bell said. “That’s all you can ask for.”