This is one of four feature stories on the finalists — Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, William Byron and Chase Briscoe — competing for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship on Sunday at Phoenix.

Cliff Daniels regularly asks Kyle Larson how many more years he plans to race stock cars.

One of those conversations between the crew chief and his driver recently took a little bit of a turn.

“I think for a while he wanted to be very successful in Cup and there’s a couple different ways that I think he’s gone about defining that,” Daniels said. “And at some point, he probably wanted to sail off into the sunset and run sprint cars full time and compete for a championship there.

“But what’s interesting is, recently, he’s really leaned into the long and successful career in Cup. … He and I were talking the other day. He thinks 50 wins could be on the table. He thinks 60 is definitely the new number of a benchmark to get to. So that was actually fun to talk about and kind of have that in our mind.”

They also talked about championships, too. Larson’s favorite drivers, Tony Stewart (three) and Jeff Gordon (four) have multiple titles.

Larson this weekend has the opportunity to become the 18th driver who has won more than one Cup title. The Hendrick driver must finish better than the other three Champ 4 finalists — William Byron, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe — to earn that second title.

“I don’t know as far as the history of it goes, but I think it would definitely mean something different than the first one,” Larson said. “If my second championship came exactly like my first championship did, where we won 10 races and won the championship, I don’t think the second would mean as much as the first.

“But I think this year has felt so different for us and the 5 team. It’s been more challenging than any other year that we’ve been together as a team, and … that’s what will make it feel equally as good or just as good in a different way.”

Some of the team’s adversity has been well documented. Popular public relations representative Jon Edwards died in April. Additionally that month, the team changed over-the-wall pit crews. There apparently have been other, private challenges team members have faced.

Larson takes a 23-race winless streak, the longest of his Hendrick tenure that started in 2021 with that championship season, into the season finale. But like most things, Larson doesn’t pay too much attention to statistics.

“I wouldn’t say it feels that long,” Larson said. “I didn’t know the number of races — 23 is not that bad, honestly. But I think when I was struggling, it felt like it had been a while. I just feel like we’re in contention again. I feel like we’re running like we were when we were winning. I don’t feel like a win is out of reach.”

A win would be number 33 in Larson’s career and tie him with Fireball Roberts for 28th on the all-time list. He said he thinks about stats when he wins because often he will see a note that says he has matched another driver on the career wins list (32 matched him with Dale Jarrett) and that gets his mind going.

His good friend Hamlin reached 60 wins this year. Larson, at age 32 and 12 years younger than Hamlin, says it is difficult for him to shoot for a specific number.

“For me right now, I’m still so young, I don’t feel like I’m anywhere close to the end,” Larson said. “So for Denny. I think it’s easier for him to pick 60 as his number that he wanted to get to because he’s much closer to the end than I am.

“I’m just going to try and do the best job I can. And wherever those numbers end up, they end up. And as I approach the end of my career, we’ll see what that end number might look like. Right now, I don’t really put a whole lot of focus on that. I’m just trying to do a great job and get back to victory lane.”

And Larson bristles at the suggestion that he wants to return to his sprint-car roots full time. He still races many big sprint-car events and co-owns one of the two major sprint-car series in the United States.

“Something that’s bugged me throughout my whole career is that everybody just assumes I’m here for the money, and that’s not the case at all,” Larson said. “I would not be here if I did not want to be a NASCAR. I love the sport — I love what it provides, but I love what I’m doing.

“If I wanted to go race sprint cars full time, I would have done that a long time ago. Even Cliff, he asks me all the time, ‘How long do you think you’re gonna do this?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know, a long time.’ So I’m happy doing what I’m doing. And I’ve always been happy being in NASCAR. I’ve been in it for 12 something years.”

Larson feels he shouldn’t have to justify what he loves about NASCAR. He indicated that if he wanted to leave the sport, he would have after 2020, when he was suspended indefinitely after using a racial slur when playfully addressing a friend on a chat during an online racing event.

 “If I wasn’t having fun, I’d be gone,” Larson said. “I would have not tried to come back in 2020. … For me, I get to compete in NASCAR, and I love doing that. And I also get to compete in 30 to 40 sprint car races a year.

“So I feel like it’s a great balance for me. I get to compete in a lot of the big races, the races that mean a lot to me and compete in every big race in NASCAR, and get to compete for a championship every year for the best team. So why would I ever give that up?”

That’s a great question. He had hoped that this year would be a monumental year as he attempted the Indy 500-Coke 600 double for a second time. It didn’t go as well as he had hoped as he crashed out of both events.

He hasn’t won a Cup race since.

“That was an emotional roller coaster,” team owner Rick Hendrick said. “The team has to get back up on their feet.

“I look at what they’re doing now. He was in a position to win the race at a plate race where we haven’t had a lot of success with that car. He ended up running out of gas. There’s a lot of races he was leading the race, and a caution came out and something happened.”

Gordon, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization, certainly wouldn’t count out Larson this weekend.

“Kyle … is very unique in the way he blocks things out,” Gordon said. “I feel like he’s always had confidence, always been able to fall back on his talents, his race team, his race cars to get himself back there.”

And if he does, it would be historical for him at Phoenix.

“He certainly is leaning into trying to maximize everything he can in the Cup Series, and in a way, he feels like he has a little bit of unfinished business,” Daniels said. “And I kind of do as well for our team, of knowing how competitive we’ve been and certainly scored some wins, we feel like there’s more wins to go get.

“And of course, neither of us is satisfied just having one championship. So I think that’s what keeps him motivated and certainly me and his team as well.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.