With the exception of the four NASCAR Cup Series drivers vying for a championship Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, the season-ending race at the 1-mile oval allows everyone else the opportunity to end their year on a high note while simultaneously preparing for 2026.<\/p>\n
A solid performance in the finale at Phoenix can help teams establish a proper baseline for the beginning of next season, which is appropriate since Monument Hill, which overlooks the racetrack, served as the baseline for almost every property description in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
Back in 1867, land surveyor William H. Pierce and his seven-man crew used Monument Hill as the zero point for Phoenix\u2019s grid layout. The survey became the Gila and Salt River Baseline, and it\u2019s where nearby Baseline Road earned its name.<\/p>\n
Baseline Road is the stretch of asphalt that runs parallel to Interstate 10. It connects suburban Phoenix to the track\u2019s location in Avondale, and for teams staying near Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, it\u2019s an effective backway into the track.<\/p>\n
For those seeking a better baseline for 2026, Baseline Road sends them in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhoenix can be a springboard for next season,\u201d said Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Mighty Fire Breaker Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Rick Ware Racing. \u201cThat\u2019s not to say we need to have a phenomenal finish at Phoenix, but you definitely want to end the year on a high note by having a good race and learning some things that you can expand on during the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cPositive momentum can be carried into the Clash at Bowman Gray and Daytona. November and December go by quickly and, next thing you know, it\u2019s January and it\u2019s hammer down on car prep before you load up for the Clash.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s called the offseason, but there\u2019s not much \u2018off\u2019 in it. We want a good result at Phoenix to carry us through all the work we need to do to get ready for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phoenix is a flat and fast track. Pairing mechanical balance with a car\u2019s aerodynamics is what allows a driver to feel secure when wheeling his racecar through the scant nine degrees of banking in turns one and two and the 11 degrees of banking in turns three and four.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhoenix has always been a difficult racetrack,\u201d Ware said. \u201cIt\u2019s not really a short track because it\u2019s so wide and so fast. It kind of blends the lines of an intermediate, downforce-style track into a short track.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a short track, we\u2019re doing a lot of shifting at Phoenix, and there are different ways to approach the corners in regard to how many times you\u2019re shifting and where you\u2019re shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other element that\u2019s specific to the season finale at Phoenix is that four drivers are racing for a championship amid 34 drivers who aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always have in the back of your mind that a championship is being decided around you,\u201d Ware said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to make a headline that alters that championship. In fact, I don\u2019t want to be mentioned on the broadcast until after the race is over. I want to be Mr. Invisible until the checkered flag drops and then if they\u2019re talking about me, it\u2019s because I had a good finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting a good finish at Phoenix means being comfortable with being uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoose is fast at Phoenix, and the setups there are very aggressive,\u201d Ware said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to run the car mechanically free, so you never feel good around Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though it\u2019s only a 312-lap race, it feels like a very long 312 laps. You\u2019re out of breath at the end of it. You definitely feel like you\u2019ve earned a well-deserved offseason once the checkered flag drops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ware and his Cup Series counterparts take to the desert mile for the first time on Friday for a 50-minute practice beginning at 2:35 p.m. MT\/5:35 p.m. EDT. They will have an evening to pour through data before qualifying on Saturday, which starts at 2 p.m. MT\/5 p.m. EDT. TruTV and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide live coverage of both. The Cup Series season finale goes live on Sunday at 1 p.m. MT\/3 p.m. EST with flag-to-flag coverage delivered by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.<\/p>\n
RWR PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the exception of the four NASCAR Cup Series drivers vying for a championship Sunday at Phoenix Raceway,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,925,10221,634,7817,43326,7577,582,28282,721,82,17725],"class_list":["post-245145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daytona","tag-ford","tag-nascar","tag-nbc","tag-phoenix-raceway","tag-qualifying","tag-racing","tag-rick-ware-racing","tag-series","tag-sports","tag-the-clash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}