Asterisk Mark Report – Phoenix (Spring 2022)

Chase Elliott – Chase Elliott had one of the best cars this spring at Phoenix but finished an asterisk mark 11th. “Performance Wise”, Elliott was clearly a top 3 performer, but his afternoon went south late. In the race, Elliott finished 3rd in Stage #1, 2nd in Stage #2, had a race best 3.9 average running position, led 50 laps but late cautions were his undoing. With 30 to go he was running in 2nd, but a caution just after that dropped him back to 7th. Then with 9 to go while running in 7th, Elliott got loose and spun. With problems that late, Elliott’s lucky to have finished that well.

Christopher Bell – Christopher Bell likely had a strong car this spring at Phoenix, but he finished an asterisk mark 26th. In the race, Bell finished 6th in Stage #1, but then during the Stage #1 caution he had a slow stop that dropped him from 6th to 21st. Then later in Stage #2 on lap 119 while he was running around the mid-teens he had a flat tire and spun which doomed him to a poor result.

Kyle Larson – Kyle Larson is the defending fall Phoenix winner and in 6 of his last 7 races in the desert he’s finished in the top 7. This spring, Larson started in the back, finished 7th in Stage #1, 5th in Stage #2 but then in the last Stage while running around 5th his engine blew up. In a post-DNF interview, Larson said he had a 4th to 5th place car.