Joey Logano came into this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series championship-decider in Phoenix confident that his experience and preparation would ultimately make the difference. He was right.
Logano nailed a restart with 52 laps remaining, vaulting from fifth to first in two laps, and then held off a surging Ryan Blaney over the closing laps to seal his third championship and give Team Penske its third title in as many years.
THE NO. 22 WITH A HUGE MOVE TO TAKE THE LEAD! #Championship4 pic.twitter.com/MDvDlQhY3W
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“To be able to race (Blaney) to the end, it was fun,” Logano said. “But honestly, I knew that he was going to be our toughest competition going into the weekend. I said that to our guys. I said, Blaney is going to have the speed. We’ve got to beat him on the details. That’s where we have the advantage over them. But the speed, no, he’s got turned up pretty high.
“Everything worked out well, and the details at the end, the restart and getting out there and managing, that was really the difference.”
His day wasn’t without a couple of curveballs. A slight delay with his right-front tire cost him four spots during his first pit stop. Later, his jackman took ill and needed to be removed from the pit wall, prompting an intra-Penske crew scramble that resulted in Austin Cindric’s jackman moving across to the No.22.
Logano’s path to the playoffs was initially closed when he missed the cutoff in the Round of 12, but then reopened when Hendrick Motorsport’s Alex Bowman was disqualified from the Charlotte race due to his car failing a post-race technical inspection.
The Phoenix win was Logano’s fourth of the season and the title now places him in the same company as Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and Tony Stewart as a three-time champion.
Blaney was left behind while Logano shot off at the last restart, but his No. 12 car had plenty of speed and he made relatively easy work of closing down the gap to Logano as the pair made their way through traffic. Actually getting past him was another matter though, and despite exploring every conceivable line through the final few laps, Logano was able to keep him in check.
“Worn out,” Blaney told NBC Sports. “Just couldn’t quite get there. Tried really hard to do so. The restart didn’t really work out. [Logano] got too far away from me. Took a while to pass a couple of guys and just couldn’t get by Joey, but congrats to him and the rest of the No. 22 team. They put together a great playoffs. If I’m going to race somebody, I’m happy it’s him for the championship. And a 1-2 for Roger [Penske], three in a row for Roger is amazing for him and Ford. Just didn’t have enough at the end. Heck of a battle.”
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Williams Byron made it a 1-2-3 for Championship 4 drivers, but his No. 24 Hendrick Chevy didn’t have an answer to the speed of the leading Penskes. His best chance came when he stayed out longer before making his final stop, which would have given him fresher tires for the run to a flag, but a caution immediately after he returned to the track allowed the other contenders to pit under yellow and negate his advantage.
The other championship hopeful, 23XI’s Tyler Reddick, didn’t have the pace to match his rivals all afternoon and had to settle for sixth.
The race was largely incident-free, with just two cautions for accidents. The first came early, when Ty Gibbs walled the No.54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the second lap. The second, on lap 150 – just after Byron’s stop – was prompted by Zane Smith hitting the barriers in the No.71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. Not wanting to be overshadowed by the race cars, a pace car also ushered in a few laps under yellows when it made a very late move to pull off the track, got out of shape and took out a large plastic barrel.
Martin Truex Jr led some laps at the start of his final race as a full-time competitor, but he faded as the race progressed and finished a disappointed 17th.