2024 NASCAR Championship predictions: This could be William Byron's year

In all three of NASCAR’s national series, will the regular-season champion cap the season with the overall title?

All three – Tyler Reddick in Cup, Cole Custer in Xfinity and Christian Eckes in trucks — are still alive going into the Phoenix Raceway finale weekend.

In each series, four drivers have survived elimination rounds to be eligible for the title. While the races have their full fields, only four drivers compete for the title with the driver among those four who finishes best in the race being crowned the champion.

So here are my picks for the championship weekend, which consists of a 150-lap truck race Friday night, 200-lap Xfinity race Saturday night and a 312-lap Cup championship event Sunday afternoon on the 1-mile oval.

Cup Series

Reddick makes his first Cup championship appearance. It also is the first for his crew chief, Billy Scott. And if that’s not somewhat nerve-racking, it’s hard to ignore that his race team, 23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan, is in just its fourth year of existence. Not to mention that the team also is suing NASCAR for better charter agreement terms.

NASCAR won’t do anything to keep Reddick from winning the title, but Reddick and the team have done that enough to themselves, at times, this year, to eliminate themselves from contending for wins. Reddick did win the opening stage at Phoenix in the spring and finished second in another stage before placing 10th. 

Ryan Blaney won last year in his first Champ 4 appearance, so Reddick could certainly follow in those footsteps. Or Blaney could go back-to-back — the first driver to do so in the elimination-style playoff era. And Blaney’s two-time Cup champion teammate Joey Logano seems to perform best when it matters most.

William