Even-year Logano continues streak and punches ticket to championship with fuel-milage win in South Point 400
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Las Vegas-What a difference a week makes. Or maybe it’s just that even-year magic. No matter how you slice it, Joey Logano is championship-bound.
In Sunday’s SouthPoiint 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Logano was able to save plenty of fuel to secure his third victory of the season, this time in the first race in the round of 8. This was his 35th victory of his career. It’s also his fourth time going to Victory Lane in Las Vegas.
Just last week at Charlotte after the race had concluded, Logano looked to be out of the playoffs altogether. But when the 48 team couldn’t meet the minimum weight and was disqualified, they were granted a second chance to redeem themselves.
“It’s a little bit hard to believe at the moment,” Crew Chief Paul Wolfe said of the wave of emotions over the last few weeks. “A lot of ups and downs but I think just kind of rolling with flow and not getting too excited, not getting too down is kind of how I operate.”
With this victory, the Team Penske group gets two weeks to prepare for the final race of the season at Phoenix and a few weeks. It’s an advantage they’ve used to their benefit before as Logano won a NASCAR Cup Series title in 2022 doing the same thing. He’s also made the Championship 4 in every even-numbered year since 2014 and has a pair of titles to his name. It’s also his sixth trip to the Championship 4.
“Obviously, it feels really good,” Logano said of punching his championship ticket. “So proud of our race team all the way through this group of guys is they’re truly incredible. They’re good people, which is one of the things I’m most proud of. But they’re really smart, and in the playoffs, they’re able to really be able to keep a level head and maximize the races, no matter what’s dealt with them.”
Logano was able to get the victory by leading just six laps, which happened to be the final six laps of the race. He was able to gain the lead on lap 261 with the help of teammate Ryan Blaney.
Over the final stage of the race, it came down to a pair of dueling strategies. On one hand, you had the dice rollers of Logano and Wolfe who chose to stay out and risk the fuel mileage. But on the other was Christopher Bell who pitted and was put on offense. Logano won the race by slowing down his lap times at the beginning of the final green-flag run.
It also helps that Logano is one of the top guys in the sport at saving fuel, which is what he did.
Speaking of Bell, he was the dominant car all day as he led a race-high four times for 155 laps. But as the laps wound down, the strategy of being on offense just didn’t work out and Bell finished second again in this race for the second-straight year.
Bell also won the second stage after starting on the pole. He was able to maximize points to jump to 42 points above the cut line with two races left to go.
However, this strong points day doesn’t take away the sting of coming up shirt once again.
“I definitely feel like I executed my race,” Bell said. “I feel like our team executed our race and just wasn’t meant to be today. That’s more of a dagger than last year.’”
Finishing third was Daniel Suarez who used the same strategy as Logano. But over the final few laps, the faster cars got past him.
Bringing it home fourth in a rather quiet day was William Byron. It was a quiet day for Byron as he collected points in both stages.
Rounding out the top five was Alex Bowman. After being eliminated from the playoffs last week, they were able to rebound with a good finish.
Playoff drivers struggle with bad days to shake up standings
If you weren’t one of the few playoff drivers who had a smooth day, it was a rough day.
On lap 90, there was a spectacular three-car wreck that involved playoff drivers Chase Eliott and Tyler Reddick. Reddick was out of the race and Elliott was multiple laps down after getting back to minimum speed and going to the garage for repairs. Ryan Blaney was also involved and was multiple laps down the rest of the way.
Coming into the day, Kyle Larson was leading the points. But he got front-nose damage after Austin Dillon wrecked. That was compounded by a bad pit stop that put him two laps down. However, they rebounded to finish 11th.
As the series heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway next week, the playoff standings sit with Logano advancing, Bell (+42), Larson (+35), Byron (+27), Hamlin (-27), Reddick (-30), Blaney (-47), and Elliott (-53).
