Since the current NASCAR playoffs format was adopted, Joey Logano has seemingly been able to find an extra gear whenever he's needed to in the Round of 8. Whenever he's needed to, the 2018 Cup Series champion has seemingly been able to find a way to give himself an opportunity to race for the title -- and he's done it again today.
After giving up track position to take four fresh tires late in the going, Logano used his superior rubber to go on a tear through the field, making a dramatic pass on Ross Chastain with three laps to go to win the South Point 400 at Las Vegas, his third win of the season and the 30th of his Cup career.
Logano's victory makes him the first driver to become locked into the Championship 4, giving him a shot at the Cup title for the fifth time in his career. Logano previously made the Championship 4 in 2014, 2016, his championship year of 2018 and 2020.
South Point 400 unofficial results
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #1 - Ross Chastain
- #18 - Kyle Busch
- #14 - Chase Briscoe
- #11 - Denny Hamlin
- #8 - Tyler Reddick
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #43 - Erik Jones
- #16 - A.J. Allmendinger
- #3 - Austin Dillon
After a caution came out with 27 laps to go, Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe elected to employ an alternate tire strategy, coming to pit road for four fresh tires even though the leaders only had just over a dozen or so laps on theirs. The move came after their previous pit stop had gone poorly, dropping Logano from second to deep in the top 10.
After restarting 13th with 22 laps to go, the discrepancy between the leaders' tires and Logano's would end up being the difference in the final run to the finish, as Logano tore through the field before prevailing in a dramatic battle for the win with Ross Chastain.
"All you want to do is get to the Championship 4 and the season starts and (you) race for a championship," Logano told NBC Sports. "We've got the team to do it. I don't see why we can't win at this point. Things are looking really good for us ... A lot of adversity fought through the last 50 laps or so.
"I thought we were gonna win, then we kind of fell out and had the tires. Racing Ross was fun; he was doing a good job air-blocking me. I was trying to be patient, and eventually I was like, 'I gotta go here.' Just great to win out here in Vegas again, and it means so much getting to the championship."
Bubba Blows Up
The most consequential and controversial moment of Sunday's race came on Lap 94, when a run-in between two of the Cup Series' biggest stars ended in ugly fashion and also caused collateral damage to a playoff contender.
While trying to pass Bubba Wallace for fifth, Kyle Larson slid up the racetrack on the exit of Turn 4, running Wallace up the track and into the outside wall. Wallace responded by hooking Larson in the right rear -- by all indications, deliberately -- and spinning both cars up the track and hard into the outside wall, also collecting playoff contender Christopher Bell in the process.
Still not satisfied, Wallace confronted Larson directly, shoving him several times before the two were separated.
Wallace was incensed largely because he had been having a strong race up to that point, taking the lead late in Stage 1 before taking the stage victory. Wallace denied intentionally wrecking Larson in a television interview.
"Larson wanted to make a three-wide divebomb. Never cleared me, and I don't lift," Wallace told NBC Sports. "I know I'm kind of new to running at the front, but I don't lift. I wasn't even in a spot to lift and he never lifted either, and now we're junk. Just piss-poor move on his execution.
"He knows that what he did was wrong. He wanted to question what I was doing. He never cleared me."
Interestingly, Wallace was not summoned to the NASCAR hauler for a stern talking-to, as is usually the case when a driver steps over the line on-track. According to Dustin Long of NBC Sports, NASCAR stated that they would review the entire incident between the two drivers this week. Earlier this year, Xfinity Series star Noah Gragson was fined $35,000 and docked 30 points for intentionally wrecking Sage Karam to cause a multi-car crash in a race at Road America.
While he was able to get out of a similar hole last week at the Charlotte Roval, Christopher Bell is now approaching playoff straits after being the innocent bystander in the situation. Bell is now 23 points below the cutoff line to make the Championship 4 with two races still left to run in the Round of 8.
Playoff Pendulum
If there was ever a race to demonstrate that it's about how you finish instead of how you start, it was Sunday's race for playoff contenders Chase Briscoe and Ryan Blaney.
Blaney, the only winless driver remaining in championship contention, looked to have the car to beat by running up front, leading 39 laps, and taking the win in Stage 2. Meanwhile, Briscoe was seemingly completely out to lunch, going a lap down and at one point reporting that he thought his car had dropped a cylinder.
But as the race progressed, Briscoe got back on the lead lap and then began to make his way up into the top 10. Then, as Blaney was chasing down Ross Chastain for the race lead with 40 laps to go, something broke on the No. 12 Ford in Turn 2, sending Blaney into the outside wall before he spun and hit the inside wall as well.
As Blaney limped home to a 28th-place finish, Briscoe was able to find the front and almost stayed there, taking the lead from Justin Haley on a restart and then holding it until being passed by Chastain on another restart with 16 laps to go.
The saving grace for Blaney was that thanks to a healthy sum of points earned in the first two stages, he was able to minimize the damage done to his playoff position, as he is just a manageable 11 points below the cut line. Meanwhile, Briscoe is now nine points below the cut line as he, Blaney, Bell and William Byron are now looking up at Logano, Chastain, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott.
Race Results Rundown
- While Joey Logano remains 29th on NASCAR's all-time wins list, he is now the 29th driver in history to have 30 or more career wins. The next five drivers Logano can catch are several current and future Hall of Famers, including Martin Truex Jr. (31), Dale Jarrett (32), Fireball Roberts (33), Kurt Busch (34) and Brad Keselowski (35).
- Kyle Busch finished third in his final hometown race with Joe Gibbs Racing, but not without issue. During a late pit stop under caution, the left front tire was left loose on Busch's car, and it clung to his left front fender before finally rolling away halfway down the backstretch. That could be big trouble for crew chief Ben Beshore, as a four-race suspension at this point in the year would bleed over into the 2023 Daytona 500.
- Erik Jones scored his 13th top 10 of the season in eighth, meaning that just one more top 10 will match the highest top 10 mark of Richard Petty's final years in the No. 43 car (14 in 1987). The last time Petty had more? You have to go all the way back to 1983, when The King scored 21 top 10s on the way to his last top-five finish in points.
- Even though he's only run 15 races in Cup this season, AJ Allmendinger scored his seventh top-10 finish of the season with a ninth-place run today. That's the third-most he's had in his Cup career, behind only his best marks of eight top 10s in 2010 and 10 top 10s in 2011.
- A nice run for Noah Gragson as he continues to sub for Alex Bowman: The Las Vegas native finished just outside the top 10 in 11th, his best finish in Cup this season on a non-superspeedway.
- While he would end up fading late, Justin Haley capitalized on a two-tire stop late in the race to lead 16 laps and battle Briscoe and Chastain for the victory before finishing 14th. Haley's 16 laps led are his second highest total in a race this season behind Dover in May, where he led 19 laps.
Next Race
The Round of 8 is taking its talent to South Beach next week, as the Cup Series heads to the fan and competitor-favorite Homestead-Miami Speedway for the Dixie Vodka 400 next Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
