{"id":248848,"date":"2025-10-29T22:58:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/248848\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:58:22","slug":"nascar-insiders-sound-off-on-wide-open-championship-between-jgr-and-hendrick-if-playoff-format-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/248848\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insiders sound off on ‘wide open’ championship between JGR and Hendrick, if playoff format worked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two NASCAR insiders shared their thoughts on the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race that will take place at Phoenix on Sunday. On The Teardown podcast<\/a>, Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck of The Athletic sounded off on the battle between the drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) and Hendrick Motorsports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most wide open I have felt this Championship 4 field has been in a long time,\u201d Bianchi said. \u201c\u2026As you dive into it deeper this week, it\u2019s like you can make a case for any of the four, legitimately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four drivers who are competing in the championship race are two JGR drivers (Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe) and two drivers from Hendrick (William Byron and Kyle Larson). \u201cAll four of these twams come in running very, very well,\u201d Bianchi added. \u201c\u2026All four of these drivers are legit. They are arguably the four best drivers on the season. <\/p>\n

Gluck talked about interviewing Christopher Bell after the race. Bell, who just fell short of reaching the Championship 4, praised the playoff format, saying the four drivers who made the championship race deserved to be there.<\/p>\n

More on the NASCAR playoffs and championship race <\/p>\n

Gluck said he agrees with Bell, but he supports determining the champion through a 36-race format. \u201cI\u2019m not going to change my mind based off one race today,\u201d Gluck said about the Martinsville race. \u201cBut out of all the years, this might be the most deserving four.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026But it\u2019s not like this every year, and it\u2019s not even like this in every series,\u201d Gluck added. \u201cYes, it worked out this year. Great, that\u2019s wonderful. I still don\u2019t believe this is the format that NASCAR should go with in the future, and they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear when NASCAR will change the playoff format, but there will be something different for the playoffs next year. Instead of Phoenix Raceway hosting the championship race, NASCAR will have the event at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Phoenix will still be part of the playoffs, as it will host a playoff race on Oct. 18. <\/p>\n

But what about this year\u2019s race? Who comes in as the favorite since it\u2019s \u201cwide open?\u201d Per BetMGM Sportsbook, Hamlin is the odds-on favorite <\/a>to win the title, and he\u2019s followed by Larson, Byron, and Briscoe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two NASCAR insiders shared their thoughts on the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race that will take place at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-248848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248848","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=248848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}