The championship four has been set and now there’s one thing left to do for the NASCAR Cup Series: decide a champion at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday. We know now that the four drivers who will compete for the title are Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, and William Byron. All four drivers have deep roots in short track racing, whether on dirt or pavement, so let’s take a deeper look at how all four of these drivers have gotten to this point in their career.

Kyle Larson

The Elk Grove, California native is going for his second NASCAR Cup Series championship in three years. Larson became the 2021 champion after his Hendrick Motorsports crew performed what is widely considered to be the greatest pit stop in the history of NASCAR racing.

But to get to that point in his career, Larson worked his way through the dirt track world, beginning with Outlaw Karts and eventually Midgets and Sprint Cars, to become the driver that we know now. 

Larson’s exploits on dirt are obviously well-documented: Two-time Chili Bowl Nationals champion, two-time Knoxville Nationals champion, inaugural High Limit Sprint Car Series champion, 2021 Kings Royal winner, and 2021 Prairie Dirt Classic winner among so many other accomplishments. 

Watch: Kyle Larson Wins Second Knoxville Nationals

We could go on and on about Larson’s strength on dirt as a competitor, but perhaps Larson’s biggest accomplishment isn’t even a race win. Larson’s mere presence at a dirt track in rural USA is a win for short track racing because he packs every track he appears at. Fans clamor to see Larson race their home track and leave with a night they’ll never forget.

Christopher Bell

The Norman, Oklahoma native has made the championship four for the second year in a row. Bell was the lowest finishing driver of the championship four last year with a 10th-place run at Phoenix Raceway. His best finish in the Next Gen era (three races) at Phoenix came this spring when Bell finished sixth, though the three drivers he’s racing against this Sunday all finished ahead of him.

Bell is now a six-time winner in the NASCAR Cup Series and punched his ticket to Phoenix by winning at Homestead-Miami Speedway two weeks ago.

But at this point it’s almost easy to forget Bell’s extensive short track racing background since it’s been so long since we’ve seen Bell race anything that wasn’t a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the Cup Series.

As a reminder, Bell is a three-time champion of the Chili Bowl Nationals. What’s more, all three of those wins came consecutively from 2017-2019. Bell hasn’t run the Chili Bowl since he finished second to Tanner Thorson in 2022.

Bell won the USAC National Midget Series championship in 2013 and has 23 victories in that series, along with five World of Outlaws wins and seven Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions victories, and he also owns a Sprint Car team that Gavan Boschele frequently races for.

He even has a deep pavement short track history as well. Bell ran a handful of years behind the Kyle Busch Motorsports Super Late Model, scoring multiple victories with the CARS Tour, Southern Super Series, and CRA Super Series in 2015 and 2016 before focusing solely on his NASCAR career. Perhaps Bell’s most famous pavement victory is when he won the Rattler 250 at Opp, Alabama’s South Alabama Speedway and came face-to-face with the rattlesnake in one of the greatest victory lane photos of all time.

Ryan Blaney

The High Point, North Carolina driver qualified for the championship four for the first time in his career by winning at Martinsville Speedway last Sunday. Blaney enters the championship showdown at Phoenix as perhaps the hottest driver in the Cup Series currently with wins in two of the last five races and no finish worse than 12th in the last five races.

Blaney won at Talladega Superspeedway to qualify for the Round of 8 before taking home the Grandfather Clock at Martinsville to advance to the championship four, with finishes of 12th (Charlotte Roval), sixth (Vegas) and second (Homestead) sandwiched in between.

In the dirt world, Blaney is best known for being the son of the 1995 World of Outlaws champion, Dave Blaney, nephew of Dale Blaney, and grandson of Lou Blaney, who is a member of the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame.

Even though his family has such an extensive history in dirt racing, Ryan Blaney does not. In fact, his dirt background doesn’t go much further than racing in NASCAR on dirt. Instead, Blaney came through the pavement short track ranks in the southeast.

Blaney spent most of his time racing Super Late Models and won the championship with the now-defunct PASS South Super Late Model Series in 2011.

William Byron

The Charlotte, North Carolina native, much like Blaney, is a first-time participant in the championship four this year. Byron has the most wins of any driver in the Cup Series this season with six, but made it into the championship four by the skin of his teeth. Byron finished the Round of 8 just four points ahead of Hamlin to make it to the final round.

Byron’s background is nowhere near as extensive as his three championship combatants, but that’s simply due to when Byron began racing. 

It’s well-documented that Byron got his start through iRacing before eventually getting the chance to give it a shot in the real world. Byron didn’t sit behind the wheel of a physical race car until he was 15 years old. He went on to win 33 races in his first year in the Legend Car Young Lions division, and he won the championship. Within two years he was racing in Late Model Stock Cars for JR Motorsports before moving to Pro and Super Late Models and eventually into the ARCA Menards Series East (then known as the K&N Pro Series East) in 2015, which was just the third year of his racing career. Byron won the East Series title with four wins, and then moved into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2016.

Wired Up: Listen In As William Byron Battles For The Lead At New Smyrna

Byron won seven races in his only Truck Series campaign, but an engine failure kept him from having a chance to win the championship that year. He moved up to the Xfinity Series in 2017 where he’d win four races and the championship as a rookie, and then he immediately moved into the Cup Series for Hendrick Motorsports in 2018.

Since then, Byron has gone on to win 10 races in the Cup Series, with six of those wins coming this season alone.

But Byron hasn’t forgotten his short track roots. The last two years especially, Byron has gone back to racing Super Late Models every chance he gets. He’s now gone on to win the Slinger Nationals, a handful of races at New Smyrna Speedway during the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing, the Battle at Berlin, and the Money in the Bank at Berlin, just to name a few. He’s also scored wins with the CARS Tour a few years back as well.