Who’s in, who’s on the edge and who needs to win a race to make NASCAR’s playoffs.
Going into the race weekend at Nashville Superspeedway for Sunday’s Ally 400, the NASCAR Cup Series has just 10 of 26 regular-season races remaining, which means only 10 more chances for drivers to win a race and lock themselves into the playoffs, starting in September.
After a rare off-weekend, NASCAR is headed to Nashville before taking on Chicago’s street course race in a new event, followed by races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Richmond Raceway to close out the month.
If a driver wins at least one of the 26 regular-season races, they secure their spot in the 10-race playoffs culminating in a winner-take-all championship race at Phoenix Raceway in November. If there are fewer than 16 different race winners in the regular season, the rest of the playoff field is determined by points.
With the season’s first 16 races in the books, Martin Truex Jr. is at the top of the regular-season standings, and the regular-season winner gets a 15-point bonus headed into the playoffs.
Notably absent from the current projected playoff picture is 2020 champ Chase Elliott, who’s recent suspension and injury have kept him sidelined for seven races. At 27th in the regular-season standings, he’ll likely have to win a race to make the postseason at this point.
So with 10 races remaining before the playoffs, here’s a look at the top-20 drivers in the regular-season standings, along with their projected playoff rank and points.
With 10 races left in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, 10 drivers have clinched a berth in the playoffs. Those drivers have done so, naturally, through winning a race before the one and only off weekend on the schedule. There have been 10 …
With 10 races left in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, 10 drivers have clinched a berth in the playoffs.
Those drivers have done so, naturally, through winning a race before the one and only off weekend on the schedule. There have been 10 different winners in the Cup Series through 16 races.
Martin Truex Jr. added a second win last Sunday at Sonoma Raceway. In doing so, Truex took the points lead and is in contention for the regular season championship. Truex has a 13-point margin on William Byron.
Truex is the fourth different point leader since the race at Talladega Superspeedway at the end of April. Others who have led the standings in recent weeks include Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, and Christopher Bell.
Although he’s led the points, Chastain is winless. It’s been over a year since the Trackhouse Racing driver has visited victory lane, although he is still holding a post-season spot going into the summer stretch.
Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman are also winless. Those four drivers won races a year ago and currently hold down spots inside the playoff grid.
A win is what it’s going to take to get Chase Elliott into the postseason. The Hendrick Motorsports driver is thinking as much after missing nine races because of an injury and then a suspension. Elliott is 27th in the point standings, 84 points out of the playoff grid.
Here is the playoff grid after Sonoma Raceway (before reseeding with bonus points):
1. William Byron: 3 wins
2. Kyle Busch: 3 wins
3. Martin Truex Jr. 2 wins
4. Kyle Larson: 2 wins
5. Ryan Blaney: 1 win
6. Christopher Bell: 1 win
7. Denny Hamlin: 1 win
8. Joey Logano: 1 win
9. Tyler Reddick: 1 win
10. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: 1 win
11. Ross Chastain: +173
12. Kevin Harvick: +172
13. Chris Buescher: +102
14. Brad Keselowski: +96
15. Bubba Wallace: +26
16. Alex Bowman: +3
——-
17. Daniel Suarez: -3
18. Ty Gibbs: -11
19. Michael McDowell: -14
20. AJ Allmendinger: -33
The Cup Series returns to action on June 25 at Nashville Superspeedway.
It was a conscious effort to relish the first few minutes after he crossed the finish line first, beating out Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott in the title hunt. He knew from his first championship in 2018 that those initial moments are exceptional and almost impossible to replicate.
“If I’m being honest, it definitely feels a little different,” Logano said when asked Sunday night how his second championship compares with the first. “But it still feels really special. What I remember of the first championship was the moment when you get out of the car and you see everybody for the first time. That’s the most special moment of the whole thing. …
“That first 10 minutes is the best. There’s just nothing like it. It’s so hard to achieve it, and you just hope to have that feeling again.”
Here’s a look at the 12 best photos of Logano celebrating.
“I always wanted to do that just because, I don’t know, it’s cool.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Not long after Joey Logano crossed the finish line to win the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series championship, his 4-year-old son, Hudson, was by his side, ready to celebrate and helping the No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver collect his checkered flag.
“Ever since Kevin took Keelan in Michigan for a ride in the car, I said, ‘I want to do that,” Logano said after winning his second Cup championship. “Like, I always wanted to do that just because, I don’t know, it’s cool.”
So after the father-son duo collected the checkered flag, Hudson climbed into the seatless passenger side of the No. 22 car for some “gentle donuts together” before a quick ride around the one-mile track. Kyle Busch did the same thing with his son after his 2019 championship win.
Hudson was an infant when Logano won his first championship in 2018, so this one is extra special for the pair.
Logano continued during his post-race press conference:
“I always dreamed of winning with him here because I always wanted to take him for a ride. We’d go for rides in hot rods all the time together, and it’s definitely not the first donuts we’ve done together. But the first time in a race car, well — on the race track. It’s the first time on a race track that we got to do donuts together.
“That’s just cool, to see him running up there, grabbing the checkered flag, it’s hard to explain. If you have kids, you understand the love that you have for them — it’s truly unconditional love. To see him smiling and celebrate the moment together, it’s truly the most awesome feeling.
“And the fact that we can talk about it, right? The first time I won it, he was like nine-months-old. He didn’t know which way was up, could barely hold his head up. Now, to see him running up there and grabbing the flag and going for a ride with me, couldn’t have picked a better race to do that for the first time.
Logano also said he promised Hudson he’d win, and “I couldn’t be a liar to my son.”
His other two kids — 2-year-old Jameson and 9-month-old Emilia — didn’t make the trip out to Arizona. He said he and his wife, Brittany, tried to get Jameson on West Coast time since they knew two weeks before the title race that the No. 22 team would be in contention.
“Turns out Jameson wakes up at 5:00 a.m. no matter what time you put him to sleep,” Logano said. “You can put him to bed at 10 or 6:30; he wakes up at 5 a.m. He’s a machine. We said, ‘You know what? You’re staying, bud. Love you.'”
Joey Logano absolutely dominated at Phoenix Raceway to win his second NASCAR championship.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Joey Logano never doubted he’d be the NASCAR driver hoisting the Cup Series trophy at the end of the season.
Of course, plenty of drivers enter a new season or the beginning of the playoffs with the same mentality. But Logano felt his No. 22 Team Penske Ford team was immensely prepared for this moment — including a 7 a.m. team meeting in crew chief Paul Wolfe’s bus Sunday — and he had two extra weeks to get ready after being the first Championship 4 driver to qualify for the title race at Phoenix Raceway.
He won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in mid-October, and his team quickly began eyeing the championship race, watching film, reviewing pit stops, dissecting the details and capitalizing on their advantage.
So by the time Phoenix rolled around, noticeable confidence and excitement were bursting from the 32-year-old driver through his almost-always jovial personality.
“When you saw how confident I was in my team [it was] because we were truly ready,” Logano said while wearing his gigantic championship ring.
“And you can’t fake confidence. I mean, you can maybe show it a little bit, but truly deep down inside, you have to believe that if you’re going to be ready for this battle ahead of you. And I never felt more ready.”
So when he hit the one-mile desert track, and he absolutely dominated.
He first won the pole before ultimately leading a race-high 187 laps of the 312 laps total, taking the checkered flag and winning his second career NASCAR Cup championship, along with his 2018 crown. It was also his third win at Phoenix in 28 starts.
But actually, Logano said he feels maybe a little short-changed when it comes to his championship count.
(John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
“The greed in me feels like I should have four or five at the moment,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
After being out front for the first 87 laps, Logano then traded the lead with a handful of challengers, but never with the other three championship contenders: Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain or Christopher Bell. He crushed his title competition, and for most of the race, it felt like it was his trophy to lose.
And by the time he crossed the finish line first, he was 0.301 seconds ahead of race runner-up Ryan Blaney, 1.268 ahead of Chastain in third and at least three seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Bell finished 10th, and Elliott was 28th after a run-in with Chastain that damaged his car.
“The 22 [team] was lights out all weekend, winning the pole and being super strong in practice,” Bell said. “We were just kind of playing catch-up — the rest of us were playing catch-up to him. The best car won the championship for sure.”
The oldest and most veteran of the title contenders — though Elliott was the 2020 champion — Logano said the experience delivered him an advantage beyond the obvious. Of course, he appreciates what it takes to win it all.
But he noted his fifth appearance in the Championship 4 helped him identify his competitors’ weaknesses, and when they may have been convincing themselves Sunday was just another race, Logano cranked up the pressure. He relishes it.
“I love making situations bigger than what they are — even bigger — because that pressure, to me, makes me better,” he said. “Is it uncomforting? Yeah.”
“Let me tell you, I felt like I had a 10,000-pound gorilla on my shoulder,” he continued. “It’s tough. Like, I felt the pressure, don’t get me wrong. But you gotta learn to love it because it’s right around the corner from having a moment like this.”
And it carried him to victory, making Team Penske the first organization to win a NASCAR and IndyCar Series championship in the same year.
(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
“We don’t win every day, do we?” said team owner Roger Penske, who’s No. 2 Ford squad also won the season-opening Daytona 500. “But it teaches us how to win and how to stay in the game, and I think that’s what it’s done. … So I can’t say one is better than the other. I’m just glad to be here.”
From Kurt Busch to Kyle Busch, here’s every NASCAR Cup Series champion in the playoff era.
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season concluded Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, and Joey Logano was the latest driver to win the championship.
Before 2004, the NASCAR Cup Series championship was awarded to the driver who accrued the most points over the course of the entire season. In 2004, NASCAR launched what was then called the “Chase for the Cup,” a 10-race playoff series to cap the season that has been tweaked repeatedly over the years.
The “Championship 4” winner-take-all final race was first introduced in 2014, and was run at Homestead-Miami Speedway every year until 2020, when the schedule was rearranged and it moved to Phoenix Raceway.
Since 2014, the Cup Series champion has won the season finale an impressive eight out of eight times — which means the four championship drivers likely have to take the checkered flag at Phoenix if they hope to win a title.
Here’s a look back at every NASCAR Cup Series champion since the series switched to a playoff system in 2004.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Chase Elliott’s 2022 NASCAR Cup Series championship hopes pretty much evaporated long before the race ended, thanks to contact with fellow title contender Ross Chastain.
And instead of getting on-track revenge or fueling a feud in post-race interviews, Elliott seemingly opted for the high road — the literal opposite of For The Win’s NASCAR Feud of the Week.
Racing for what would have been his second career title, Elliott was running in the top-10 for much of the first two stages of the season finale at Phoenix Raceway. But his day went sideways, quite literally, with a little more than 100 laps left at the one-mile desert track.
On a Lap 200 restart, Elliott, in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, was running in the inside lane with Chastain in the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet behind him. They both dove down the track to capitalize on the dogleg shortcut after the start-finish line, but the nose of the No. 1 car made contact with the back of the No. 9, sending Elliott spinning and slamming into the inside wall, damaging his car.
By the time Elliott returned to the track, he was one lap down and never recovered — falling to three laps down at one point. Just like that, his championship hopes vanished, finishing 28th and two laps down while Joey Logano took the checkered flag and claimed his second career championship.
When asked about the incident multiple times following the race, Elliott — who still finished with a series-high five wins in 2022 — repeatedly dodged the questions.
Chase Elliott was asked about the contact between him and Ross Chastain that essentially ended his championship hopes. #NASCARpic.twitter.com/HUTPnaACDm
“Just want to say congratulations to Joey and his team. They did a really good job this entire weekend, and he’s a very deserving champion,” Elliott told NBC Sports when asked about the incident with Chastain.
Later when he was asked about what happened from his perspective during his post-race press conference, he said he wasn’t sure and redirected: “Looking forward to the off-season.”
“Just disappointed, obviously, ended our day and ended our chance at a win or a championship,” a salty Elliott added when pressed on the contact with Chastain.
“I got to his left-rear, and he tried to cover it late, and I was already there,” Chastain said. “I feel like it was just hard racing, and I had position. We could have raced down in the corner side-by-side if he had just kept going the way we were going.
“I had a really good run. It looked like William [Byron] didn’t get going quite as well as he wanted to. I got to the left of [Elliott] and saw an erratic move that he made to turn left to cover it, but I was already there. …
“It’s not what I want to do, but I feel like I had position on him, and he tried to cover it late.”
When Elliott was questioned about why he didn’t deal some payback to Chastain, he again dodged the question: “Just proud of my team and appreciate the effort that they put in and the fight that we had for these last nine weeks.”
“I would move the final race from track to track, year to year,” Joey Logano said.
PHOENIX — After 35 races, the NASCAR Cup Series season builds toward No. 36, the season finale at Phoenix Raceway where, after the 10-race playoffs, the latest champion is crowned.
But a couple of the 2022 Championship 4 drivers would like to see championship weekend bounce to different tracks around the country, comparable to the Super Bowl, instead of remaining at one track for several years at a time.
“I think of the Super Bowl, the impact it has when it comes to a new city, how it kind of makes maybe the stadium better but also that city,” said Joey Logano, NASCAR’s 2018 champion who’s in the running for his second title Sunday, starting from the pole. “I think they should bid it out. The highest bidder — we should go to that track.”
[lawrence-related id=1980098]
Under the current playoff format, which was implemented in 2014, the postseason begins with 16 drivers, and the schedule is divided into four rounds. The first three rounds consist of three races, and at the end of each round, four drivers are eliminated from contention.
Ahead of the third season with Phoenix hosting the finale, For The Win asked the Championship 4 drivers what one thing they’d change about the playoff format.
“It’s pretty good, isn’t it? There’s always drama since we’ve been doing it,” Logano, whose stance on this topic is not new but remains strong.
“The only thing I would change is I would move the final race from track to track, year to year,” the No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver continued. “I know that’s probably not possible with a lot of deals in place and all. … I’m sure there’s a lot more business behind that that I have no idea how it works. I wouldn’t be against switching it up and trying different tracks all the time, giving fans maybe local that can’t come to a race a chance to see it.”
[lawrence-related id=1980691]
Chase Elliott, the 2020 champion also racing for his second one, agreed with Logano. He praised Homestead and Phoenix for being great stops and producing thrilling competition. And even though there are a variety of logistical concerns, he said it’s crucial that the championship race rotate.
“I certainly understand that the time of year puts you in a bit of a bind with weather in certain areas,” the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver noted. “You don’t want to go somewhere super cold, but I think it’s important to keep moving the race around and give other tracks an opportunity.
“But there’s a lot of logistics in there, who owns the track, so on and so forth. So this has been a great stop for us though. I’ve enjoyed my time coming out here, but I think we should keep it moving.”
Maybe not every year like the Super Bowl, Elliott added, suggesting tracks get the title race for “a handful” of years and then switching it up between one-mile and 1.5-mile tracks, along with shorter ones too.
“I think Bristol [Motor Speedway] is a great choice,” he said.
(Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
Since the 2020 season, the playoff elimination races have been at Bristol, Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Roval and Martinsville Speedway and will continue to be through at least the 2023 season. Ending with the Roval — a half-oval, half-road course circuit — the Round of 12 tracks also include Texas Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway to create arguably the most chaotic and unpredictable playoff round.
“They got it nailed pretty good,” said Ross Chastain of the playoff format and schedule. The No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet driver brilliantly raced his way into the Championship 4 with a wild video game move at Martinsville last weekend.
[lawrence-related id=1980569]
“They got their races where they are in order through trial and error over the years and moving them around. They create big moments, from the Roval to Talladega.”
He said he’d maybe suggest adding a true road course to the playoffs, “but I don’t know what track I would pull out.”
As for Christopher Bell — the fourth championship contender this season behind the wheel of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota — he’d prefer to scrap the whole playoff format and revert back to a season-long championship chase, which was abandoned after the 2003 season.
But that might be the most unrealistic suggestion of them all.
“I’ve always been a traditional racer growing up,” Bell said. “For me, I would rather have a whole-season champion and go out of cumulative points.”
Afterward at Martinsville, 2021 Cup champion Kyle Larson called it “a bad look” for the sport and said he’s embarrassed he tried and failed to do something similar last season at Darlington Raceway.
“I’d love to say after listening to all the fans that my opinion has changed because they’re very educated,” Larson said. “But no, it hasn’t.”
“It doesn’t take any talent to floor it against the wall and go two seconds quicker than the field,” the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver added. “I don’t think that’s fair. It’s not fair at all.”
He acknowledged that it was “crazy,” “awesome” and “took guts.” But he said he’s concerned about safety and consistency, as well as the integrity of the sport.
“When a car scares the wall with five [laps] to go and doesn’t even touch the wall, they throw a caution because they want to set up a good finish,” Larson said. “At the end of the race, it should be no different, especially with something obvious like that. …
“And it’s nothing personal against Ross. It could be anyone in the field to pull that move, and I would have felt the same way about it. It’s not fair racing.”
Larson again pointed to his embarrassment after he tried a similar move in an attempt to get around Denny Hamlin for the lead.
“I’ve done it before, so I’m being hypocritical,” Larson continued. “But I’m glad I did not win because I would not have been able to sleep at night and be proud of it, just like I don’t think I’d be proud to be in the final four with a move like that.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — I am not afraid of heights. Mountains, skyscrapers, rollercoasters, NASCAR spotter stands — all fine.
HOWEVER.
I do feel a bit uneasy when there’s a sizable gap between my feet and the ground, like on a chairlift or, say, while seated at a large dining table being suspended by a crane 150 feet in the air above a race track.
But when I heard NASCAR’s plan to offer guests a bird’s eye view of Phoenix Raceway during its championship weekend, I couldn’t resist. Absolutely had to. Being a coward was not an option here — even though this is one of my few actual lifelong fears — because when would I ever get this opportunity again?
Known as the NASCAR Championship Oasis in the Sky, it’s a chance for VIP guests to get the best possible view of the one-mile desert track with its stunning mountain backdrop. The experience is run by Dinner in the Sky Canada, and a crane raises a 22-person table above the track for 30 minutes at a time.
With giant cables holding it up, ropes also fall from the platform to the ground where operators periodically turn the table to provide a full 360-degree view, which was gorgeous with mountains on one side and Phoenix’s skyline in the distance on the other.
Once everyone on my “flight” was strapped into the chairs — there was, thankfully, not a lot of wiggle room — the crane began raising us. It wasn’t like a carnival ride; it was slow and controlled so much that it really didn’t feel like we left the ground. I didn’t even notice when we first took off.
Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone provided the perfect soundtrack as we slowly rose but also somehow quickly reached 150 feet.
Actually, we ended up climbing to 151 feet after someone at the table asked a Dinner in the Sky employee up there with us if the crane operator could go any higher.
And luckily, the wind was nearly nonexistent, allowing the handful of reporters floating above the track to just relax, take in the 30-minute experience and enjoy the end of the ARCA West race happening on the track below us.
The ride was unreal and shockingly not nearly as scary as I thought it would be — aside from the terror that briefly consumed me when I inadvertently realized the chairs swivel while we were already in the sky. (They also recline.)
Turns out, the only actual thing I was fearful of was dropping my phone.
The spectacular view was so distracting I actually forgot how far above the ground my feet were, despite the little footrest (that I could barely reach) underneath my seat.
On a gorgeous day with hardly a cloud in the sky with us, it was serene, leisurely and notably chillier up there. The breathtaking view with the track, mountains and desert landscape stretched for miles, and it felt like we could see forever in some directions.
It was actually pretty chill and offered the actual best possible view of Phoenix Raceway, which already serves as one of NASCAR’s most beautiful settings.
If you have the chance to be suspended by a crane for dinner or even just a brief moment, I’ve gotta recommend it.
