Yahoo Finance NASCAR: Your guide to the Xfinity and Truck Series championship races
The Cup Series isn’t the only NASCAR title that will be decided this weekend at Phoenix.
The Truck Series season finale is Friday night while the Xfinity Series will crown its champion Saturday. Only one driver among the four drivers in each series racing for the title is racing for his second series championship. A victory by any of the others will be that driver’s first.
Here’s a look at what you need to know ahead of those two races. The Cup Series finale is set for 3 p.m. ET on Sunday on NBC. You can read that betting preview here.
Trucks
Friday, Nov. 6, 8 p.m. ET (Fox Sports 1)
The contenders
Sheldon Creed
Creed has four wins in 2020 and has led the most laps of any driver in the Truck Series. He won at Gateway earlier in the season, the Truck Series track that’s perhaps the most similar to Phoenix. The 2018 ARCA champion guaranteed himself a spot in the final four when he won at Texas two weeks ago.
Grant Enfinger
Enfinger has led just 154 laps in 2020. Those 154 laps have come in six different races. He’s won four of them. So if Enfinger leads at all on Friday, there’s a decent chance he’s going to win the race. Enfinger won a week ago at Martinsville to secure his spot in the final four. As a driver for ThorSport Racing, Enfinger is also the only title contender who doesn’t drive for GMS Racing.
Brett Moffitt
Moffitt is the 2018 Truck Series champion and has just one win in 2020. That’s fewest among the four title contenders. But Moffitt’s 10 top-five finishes are the most of any driver racing for the title and he may be the favorite for the title. His average finish of 9.7 is second-best in the Truck Series and best among the final four.
Zane Smith
Smith has won twice in 2020 but his six top-five finishes are the fewest of any driver racing for the title. Two of them came in the last two races, however. Smith was third at Kansas and Texas to ensure that he’d be racing for his first title.
Xfinity
Saturday, Nov. 7, 5 p.m. ET (NBCSN)
The contenders
Justin Allgaier
Allgaier has three wins in 2020 and two of those came when he swept the Richmond doubleheader weekend in September. His other was at Dover. While Allgaier was 13th at Phoenix in the spring, he’s the defending champion of the fall Phoenix race. A title for Allgaier would be his first and give JR Motorsports its third title in four seasons.
Chase Briscoe
Briscoe is the odds-on favorite for the title because of how dominant he’s been in 2020. Briscoe has nine wins and 21 top-10 finishes in 32 races. He’s already signed to take over the No. 14 car for Stewart-Haas Racing in 2020 and he would be the fifth Xfinity champion in the last six years to move to the Cup Series a year after winning the title.
Austin Cindric
Cindric’s five wins put him second behind Briscoe in the win column this year. Cindric has already re-signed to stay with Team Penske in the Xfinity Series next year, so he’ll get another shot at the title before he makes his way to the Cup Series. Those five wins Cindric scored all came in a span of six races over the summer. Since then he has nine top-10 finishes in 12 races.
Justin Haley
Haley has three wins in 2020. But they’ve all come at restrictor plate tracks. Haley won twice at Talladega and won the summer race at Daytona. He did finish fifth at the spring Phoenix race. That’s the highest of any of the four title contenders. Like Cindric, Haley will be back with his current team (Kaulig Racing) for another run in the Xfinity Series in 2021.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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