Thoughts as NASCAR leaves Phoenix and heads to Homestead for the 2019 season finale:

— It’s imperative that NASCAR does something with the Cup aero package for shorter tracks before the 2020 season, at least in regard to shorter tracks. They simply can’t have the title race decided by 10 seconds. This was one of the worst races of the season, and we can’t have a repeat of that in 2020 when a championship is being decided at Phoenix. 

— There’s a lot of talk about young guns in NASCAR, and there is definitely lots of young talent in the ranks in all three major series. But look at the top ranks in Cup, and what do we see?: An average age of 38.5 among the final four at Homestead. The lesson: For now, experience rules. Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, William Byron and others will get their shot at the title soon enough. But they’re going to have to get past the veterans to do so, as long as they’re around.

The ARCA Menards Series East officially enters a new era with a seven-race slate in 2020 that will provide a mix of short-track showcases and national series companion events. The compact stand-alone schedule will also allow for the opportunity for competitors to compete for the new ten-race ARCA Menards Series Showdown championship. 

The East season will kick off as the main event of the 54th World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway on Monday, February 10. The champion will be crowned on Saturday, September 12 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s Full Throttle Fall Weekend.

Sam Mayer captured the 2019 East title at 16 years of age to become the youngest national or regional series champion in NASCAR history. He’s already counting down the days until the green flag at New Smyrna.

“I am looking forward to returning to the East series to defend my title in 2020,” Mayer said. “I had so much fun racing in that series this year and learned so much at every race. The competition was tough, and I’m sure it will be even better next year. With the series combining, it will give me the opportunity to race against some new drivers and become more competitive. Hopefully we can go out and win a bunch of races and take home another East series championship.”

Things were heating up this weekend in Martinsville, both on the track and on pit road afterward. Here are my takeaways on what we learned this week in terms of the championship fight, and what that Logano-Hamlin fight was really all about.

Truex is top dog at Gibbs, Busch in the dumps

There is no more debate to be had. After his thoroughly dominating run to the checkered flag at Martinsville, Martin Truex Jr. and the 19 team are clearly the best chance that Joe Gibbs Racing has to win the Cup title this year.

Even if Truex, Hamlin and Kyle Busch all make it to the Homestead 4 (which at this point is very possible), former team leader Kyle Busch probably has the lowest chance at winning the title of the three. And honestly, the way things are going, he might not even be in the Final Four.

He’s been inching backward toward being a mid-pack car for what seems like a very long time now, he can’t figure out how to drive with this aero package as well as his teammates, and quite frankly doesn’t seem happy most of the time.

The pace cars will be hard to miss on Sunday at Talladega, as they willl be decked out in hot pink. Chevrolet is once again supporting the American Cancer Society, for the ninth consecutive year, in its Making Strides Against Breast Cancer (MSABC) initiative, which raises breast cancer awareness and supports people battling the disease. This is an annual event hosted by Chevrolet, Talladega Superspeedway, and the American Cancer Society, in which breast cancer survivors enjoy at-track hospitality and rides around the 2.66-mile track in pink Camaro ZL1 pace cars, to bring attention and raise awareness and funds for the campaign.

Roger Penske was honored at the Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway for being the first team owner to hold the championships in two American premier motorsports series in the same season.

As a nod to "The Captain", newly crowned 2019 NTT IndyCar Series champion, Josef Newgarden, turned a few laps on the Roval behind the wheel of the No. 2 Shell Pennzoil Team Penske Chevrolet.

Select quotes from Tim Cindric, President of Penske Racing and Josef Newgarden:

TIM CINDRIC: “It is hard to believe honestly sitting up here with both of these trophies and both of these guys. Then when you look at the fact we were able to put together The Captain’s 18^th Indy 500 as well, it’s hard to believe honestly. At the start of the season, one of our big goals was for us as an organization was to start the season to where we could sit on the pole at the Indy 500 again. That was one of the big goals that we had. When we set out to do that, we hadn’t been on the pole since 2012 at Indy which is a long time for Roger (Penske). He was a little impatient with when the next one was going to come. We went to work with Shell Pennzoil on what it was going to take to differentiate us from the other competitors, and they did a great job at giving us the speed for the pole at Indy. In a lot of ways, when we look at the big trophies for the year, the big trophy for the pole at Indy is one of those. In the IndyCar Series to win all the big trophies, and all three of our guys winning races, and as an organization, we have nine out of 11 full-time drivers that have won races this year with a lot more work to do. Without a doubt a lot has been accomplished. We are going to run over 275 starts as an organization this year, and the one common thread throughout the entire organization including our V Power Super Cars in Australia is the motor oil brand and what goes into these cars. It is a testament to what they do for us as an organization. I can’t say enough about what Josef has done, and Joey (Logano) is still the Champ around here. We still have all three guys in contention here. That was a check in the box for the first championship of the year. There are four more sitting out there for us to try to get.”