The championship stage held victorious team members and associates, with onlookers and other supporters gathered all around. A smaller stage, sitting just a few feet in front of the ceremonial setup, held the trophy. And pulling in front of them both was the No. 22 yellow and red Ford driven by Joey Logano.
As the PA announcer introduced Logano, who was climbing out of his Team Penske car as the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion, the music switched. Andy Mineo began screaming, ‘You Can’t Stop Me’ over the loudspeakers as Logano did screaming of his own while on the top of his car, arms pumping. The song blared across Phoenix Raceway as Logano made the rounds high-fiving his team as a three-time champion.
The three other championship contenders couldn’t stop Logano on Sunday. He led the most laps. He held off hard-charging teammate Ryan Blaney, who was noticeably gassed afterward, having come from a few seconds back while trying to become the first repeat champion in the elimination era.
The music choice, whether intentional or not, was perfect. Some of the lyrics include:
Ricky Bobby, shake and bake
Sleepin’ on us, shoulda stayed awake
Two forks high, raise the stakes
Risk it all, I take the hate
It’s the winning team, get the Gatorade
My God good, but he’s not safe, nah
They try to shut down, and it ain’t gon’ slide
Only thing I fear is God and he on my side
That’s the confidence of God, cause He got me
That’s why I really feel like
Logano prevailed for the second time in three years and a third time in the last seven. The driver who was given a second chance when Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman was disqualified ahead of the Round of 8 made the most of it. A team that got hot at the right time won the races that mattered, when many observers didn’t have them advancing out of the first round.
And hate? There’s been plenty since Sunday, mixed with flat-out disrespect toward Logano. Among the claims are that the format is broken and that he is undeserving from a statistical standpoint.
The cries diminish and disrespect Logano’s accomplishment. One can dislike the format while still recognizing the victor. Logano and his team succeeded under the system in place, and did so emphatically when it mattered most. No other playoff driver won three postseason races.
Something special happens to Logano when the championship part of the season comes rolling around. It’s been seen time and time again. There is regular season Joey Logano and postseason Joey Logano.
“It’s just closer to the goal,” Logano said. “I become more intense; probably a little shorter-fused. I don’t know. I try to achieve the same intensity level all year long, but it just seems like when it comes down to the end, you find another gear, and it’s really hard to get to it a lot of times. But I think that’s throughout the whole team, too. It’s not just me.”
This was not a season during which Logano looked like a championship favorite. It’s easy to think only of his win at Nashville Superspeedway, while overlooking that he should have won at Richmond Raceway before Austin Dillon’s last-lap actions. Or that he was in contention at Daytona International Speedway but was the driver who sent Michael McDowell airborne when McDowell came across his nose at the front of the field. Or that he led all but one lap in the All-Star Race.
No one can argue that on paper, the numbers don’t look good. But there was more to the effort than the box score.
Logano won when he needed to at the start of the postseason. When Bowman was disqualified, he was the next-best driver in line to take the spot, having only missed advancing by five points. No, the team wasn’t the strongest in the series, but they got the job done. When given an opportunity, Logano capitalizes.
The recipe for all three of his championships is similar, Logano noted. In none of them were he and his team named the favorites, but he hoisted the trophy at the end.
It was the “Big 3 and me,” as he described it, in 2018. Logano beat the season’s dominant drivers in Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr.; the latter having declared a week prior that Logano wasn’t going to “win the damn war” after they made contact at Martinsville Speedway. Logano won the war.
In 2022, Logano led 187 laps in the finale to beat Ross Chastain – who was a week removed from the ‘Hail Melon’ – Christopher Bell, and Chase Elliott. Bell was a postseason star with two walk-off elimination race wins. Elliott won five races and the regular season championship.
In all three of his championship seasons, Logano won the opening race in the Round of 8 to clinch his championship spot. In doing so, he wasn’t afraid to say his team had just become the title favorites – and it came true.
“You find something that works,” Logano said. “It’s so easy to say it here, ‘Why don’t you just do that every year?’ It’s hard to do that. It’s not easy to win the races and things to work out the way they did. But gosh, it’s hard for me not to look back at just the rollercoaster of the Roval (ED: where he was eliminated from the playoffs, then reinstated at Bowman’s expense) to Vegas, from that quick change of events, to be sitting here three weeks later. (It’s) just crazy.
“I’m just super-blessed to be up here, to have the team that I’ve got, to get through and fight and have the endurance for the whole year to be able to do that together. I couldn’t ask to be with a better race team than the people I’ve got.”
A third championship puts Logano alone in the Cup Series as the active full-time driver with the most titles. He is in the company of Tony Stewart, David Pearson, Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, and Lee Petty.
Paul Wolfe became the winningest active crew chief in the Cup Series at Las Vegas and padded that stat with the Phoenix triumph. He, too, is now a three-time champion.
“We all do it together,” Logano said. “That’s what makes it so special. I know you hear that, and it sounds like a broken record compared to other champions that sat up here and said everyone does it together. But to see the way Paul does it, how we all sit in a room and spend a lot of time together, very honestly, with each other. It hurts sometimes. They’ll point it all out. But we were able to become a better team because of it. Doing it together and not just having Paul make the calls all by himself, we’re all in it together.
“That’s what makes these moments even more special, and that’s what makes Paul a great leader. I always call him ‘Playoff Paul,’ and then there’s ‘Championship 4 Paul,’ and they just keep leveling up. And 6:00 (Sunday) morning, we were all sitting in the Penske bus going over everything again. My man works. He wants it bad. So it’s fun to do it together.”
You can’t stop me
That’s all you got?
Come on with it
That’s all you got?
You can’t stop me
(You) don’t got the power, (can’t) shut me down
(Stop), that’s not an option, (me) I’m my biggest problem
(You) don’t got the power, (can’t) shut me down
(Stop), that’s not an option (me)
You can’t stop me!