Predicting The Championship 4 In A Season Of Parity

If there was a word to succinctly summarize this NASCAR Cup Series season, I would have to go with parity.

Now you could argue that parity was the raison d’être behind the Next Gen car, but I don’t think the powers that be in Daytona Beach imagined it playing out in quite this way. Four first-time winners in the first 17 races with 12 winners in total and no driver with more than two trips to victory lane certainly has fans guessing who will be this year’s champ.

Normally by this point, the title favorite(s) are obvious. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way in the end — no-one really expected Joey Logano to win it all in the 2018 season — but such are the vagaries of the current playoff format.

So, with that in mind, as we reach the midpoint of the 2022 season here’s my (very early) predicted Championship 4 for Phoenix Raceway this November.

THE OUTSIDER:
At the drop of the green flag at the Daytona 500, if you asked a thousand fans to name the driver with the equal most wins, the most top-fives, the equal most top 10s, the third-best laps led record and the third-best average finish at the midpoint of the season, I can’t imagine any would have plumped for Ross Chastain. But that’s where we are, and the numbers don’t lie. Simply put, Chastain is putting together a very strong case for a sustained run at a maiden title.

Now the question is how he will react when the pressure ratchets up at the sharp end of the playoffs and the truth is, we just don’t know. The other question is possible retaliation. After a particularly tricky afternoon at Gateway a few weeks back, Chastain was forthright and honest (refreshingly so, I’d add) in his post-race comments: “I owe half of the field an apology. Words aren’t going to fix it, so I’ll have to pay for it on the track. I almost did today and I deserve everything that they do.”

Is this something that comes back to haunt him? Possibly. Either way, Chastain has been one of the true feel-good stories of 2022. It will be fun to watch him run for the title.

THE MAN IN POSSESSION:
After a 10-win season for the ages in 2021, it’s been somewhat “back down to earth” for Kyle Larson in 2022.

His numbers stack up well against the rest of the field with seven top-fives (second most) and nine top-10s, but he only has one victory. At this same stage last season, he had four wins (and three in a row) by comparison. But it was in the playoffs where Larson truly showed his mettle,…