Joseph Shelton

With Kyle Larson's 39th-place finish at Kansas Speedway as well as his subsequent elimination from the NASCAR Playoffs, the stage is starting to be set for a possible underdog situation when the Championship Round at Homestead-Miami comes around.

At the start of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Playoffs, three drivers stood out as the top title contenders come the finale at Homestead-Miami: Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson, and Kyle Busch, who had been turning his season around at the right time. 

Sitting in fourth in the playoff standings is Chase Elliott, who reeled off yet another runner-up finish at Charlotte on Sunday to score his sixth-career runner-up finish and 19th top-five finish in 71 Cup Series starts.

So the pairing of two of the sport's greats in order to rediscover success in the Verizon IndyCar Series is only natural. Kanaan is no stranger to winning and being at the front of the sport while Foyt is widely regarded as one of the greatest motorsports names to ever exist. So when the green flag drops on Kanaan's No. 14 Chevy next season, it'll be quick to show whether or not Foyt or Kanaan made the right move.

Many in the NASCAR community agree with the comments made by Trump, Childress, and Petty, that whoever refuses to stand for the anthem should be fired. It has made a volatile situation, first started in the NFL, worse. Many others in the NASCAR community also believe that these comments did more harm than good for the sport's image, an image it has tried to shed and has only marginally succeeded.

In 2017, though, Rossi was the perfect example of how a sophomore should perform, scoring a win from the pole in the penultimate race at Watkins Glen and three podium finishes to finish seventh in the final season tally. Although he faced three DNFs during the season, he made up for it with several aggressive runs including a fifth in the first Belle Isle race, a third at Pocono, and a second-place run at Toronto.

The Johnsonville 180 at Road America will go down as the best XFINITY Series race of 2017, if not one of the best races of the NASCAR season, period. There was plenty of on-track action, drama, spinouts, a first-time winner, and nine of the top-15 drivers scoring their season-best finishes.

This isn't a respectable statistic for a division that boasts how "Names Are Made Here." How does one "make a name" by running fourth, ninth, and 12th on a weekly basis? Ticket sales and attendance are down and have been declining since the other two national touring divisions in NASCAR became feeder series instead of having their own identity.

Promoting Byron to the Cup Series. He just hasn't been established enough to make a successful jump. Granted, he's no stranger to Victory Lane, but as has been proven time and again, Cup cars are entirely different animals from XFINITY, Trucks, and so forth.

It's easy to believe with Christopher Bell's dominance in the Camping World Truck Series this season that he's a lock for the 2017 championship. He leads the series with four wins, has eight top-fives and 11 top-10s, three poles, and currently leads the regular season points. He's a Kyle Busch Motorsports pilot right now, and with backing from Toyota Racing Development, it's tempting to just call off the competition now and hand him the championship trophy.