Joey Logano celebrates his third NASCAR Cup Series championship with wife, Brittany, and his No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse team at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Joey Logano entered Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway with a single goal — to win his third Cup championship, all with Team Penske.
Qualifying second with a car that displayed strong short run pace and respectable long run speed, Logano set the tone early by taking the lead from polesitter Martin Truex Jr. on Lap 10. From jump street, the 34-year-old native of Middletown, Connecticut, drove to the Stage 1 win over Truex, Christopher Bell, fellow title contender William Byron and Chase Elliott.
A somewhat slow pit stop during the stage break caution dropped Logano from the lead to fifth position. Before Logano prepared for his rally toward the front, the pace car collided with the sand barrels on pit road entry resulting in a red flag for five minutes and 47 seconds.
Once green flag racing ensued on Lap 72, Bell primarily battled the Hendrick Motorsports trio of Byron, Elliott and Kyle Larson for the lead for the next 126 laps. Bell had the speed and power, leading three times for 143 laps.
Bell did not have the pace to stave off a hard charging Ryan Blaney as the 30-year-old defending Cup champion took the lead on Lap 178, capturing the Stage 2 victory. With Bell placing second, Logano rallied to third with Byron, Denny Hamlin, Chris Buescher, Larson, Elliot, Truex and Reddick rounding out the top 10.
Joey Logano knew it was go time in the final 55 laps of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
The stage was set and the orchestra prepared to play dramatic music in Stage 3 with Bell, Blaney, Byron, Larson and Logano serving as primary factors. Logano inched his way closer toward the front as he remained inside the top five for the rest of the race despite his primary jackman not feeling well halfway in the race.
Different pit strategies brought an interesting plot twist in Stage 3 of Sunday’s race for the Championship 4 contenders. Mainly, the Hendrick duo of Larson and Byron waited until the last possible moment to pit while Blaney and Logano pitted within the window for tires and fuel.
When Zane Smith backed his No. 71 car into Turn 1 wall on Lap 252, it resulted in a caution that made for a frantic final 55 laps. Despite Byron leading the ensuing restart, Logano, aware of Blaney’s fast pace, took the number one spot with conviction.
Before Logano considered staving off Blaney, he had a backup jackman in Patrick Gray from Austin Cindric’s No. 2 team. Gray filled in admirably, assisting the team with their first sub-10 second pit stop.
Any driver with any degree of success understands it is not solely on their shoulders when it comes to winning or losing. It takes a team to overcome adversity as much as it does to triumph in the face of battle like Logano did with his No. 22 team.
“I’m going to sound like a broken record, but it’s people,” Logano said. “I also just think that we thrive under pressure. I put myself in high-pressure moments, and part of the reason why I came up here yesterday and started talking crap a little bit is that it puts more pressure on me, and it seems like that helps. It’s not comfortable, but it seems like as a driver, personally, I’m better that way.
“I think as a team we thrive under those situations. That’s why we have a lot of playoff wins in comparison to the regular season percentage-wise. I think that’s a big piece of it. We got the attitude that we’re never out of it, and I think that’s what’s kept us going and shows in the playoffs so much is plenty of seasons, and this season in particular, midway through it, we could have called it a rebuilding year, but that would have been the loser thing to say.”
Joey Logano resorted to some defensive driving to stave off Ryan Blaney in the closing laps at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
In the final 55 laps, Logano built as much of a lead as possible realizing how fast Blaney’s No. 12 car was in a long run. Although Larson battled Blaney for the third position, those laps, while staving off the determined defending Cup champion, still resulted in a dramatic house battle for the race win and championship.
“I think you look at the restart, and there’s 70 to go, I believe it was somewhere around there, took off, got the lead,” Logano reflected. “It was like, OK, we’re in good shape. We were better than the 24. So we were pulling away. Blaney got stuck in fourth. Like, OK, I just had to manage, this could be a really long run. So I kind of started managing my car once I got a couple seconds out, like all right, I’m in a good spot here, just got to manage it.
“Then Blaney got clear, and I was like, ‘I’d better start going,’ considering how fast he was. To be able to pass cars these days, you’ve got to be faster, like a lot faster to pull the moves off. I knew once he cleared the Hendrick cars and they weren’t going to make it easy for him, either, because he was going to be lights-outs fast, so I started going. I said, ‘I’ve got to go.’ He started catching me at a pretty rapid rate, and to your point, those last 20 laps, and really with 13, 14 to go, he was there, and it was one mistake away.”
Even with Logano in clean air, his car did not cut in the corners as efficiently as Blaney’s mount. This meant defensive driving was in Logano’s mindset when his advantage went from over three seconds to three carlengths.
“My car couldn’t quite turn as good as his,” he recalled. “It’s a really big challenge to be able to, one, put dirty air on his line, but my fastest line wasn’t where he was. He was able to make the bottom work really well on both ends, but below the yellow line in 1 and 2 and even in the bottom of 3 and 4, but that wasn’t my fastest lane. So I was like, ‘I’ve got to go fast, but I’ve got to put the dirty on him.’ Coleman did a great job at whipping the horse as much as he could to get me going but also to get me the information that I needed to be able to hold him off.
“Yeah, it was very intense. It went from, all right, we’re looking good to holy shit, here he comes. Ryan is a tremendous race car driver. He is so fast. He pushes me a lot, more so than any other teammate I ever had. He pushes hard. So to be able to race him to the end, it was fun. But honestly, I knew that that 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.”
Joey Logano celebrated his third and latest NASCAR Cup Series championship in emphatic fashion. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
Logano had enough speed and savvy to thwart off Blaney’s pace for his 36th career Cup win. It may be the most important victory yet for the newest three-time Cup champion who is starting to believe in the supposed even year streak that sees him at least in the Championship 4 mix, and at most, a champion who does not believe in fate.
“I don’t know. I’m starting to believe in this stuff. I’ve always been Mr. Anti-luck, anti-superstitions,” Logano said. “I always do the opposite of what people say you should do. And when people say good luck, I say, I don’t need it; there’s no such thing.
“I don’t know. I don’t believe it’s luck. I still don’t believe it’s luck, but it is kind of weird that it’s gone this way. I promise you I will try hard next year, too. I don’t understand it, though. Hopefully we break the streak next year. That would be cool. I’d much rather break it by making the Championship 4 on an odd year than missing it on an even year. So let’s do it again next year.”
If Logano defends his title next season, it will be more than silencing the critics about his championship quests. A fourth championship means Logano in very exclusive company as only Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty and Jeff Gordon are the only drivers to win more than three titles.
For now, Logano merits the conversation of being a NASCAR Hall of Fame racer when he hangs up his helmet and firesuit. By then, the achievements in Logano’s impressive resume may be as loud and unmistakable as the man’s celebration and unmistakable colors of his No. 22 car.
