By james art NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Five thoughts following the opening Round 3 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series elimination playoffs at Las Vegas Motor Speedway…
1. Taking stock
One day before Joey Logano and the No. 22 team make their way into NASCAR’s championship race, Kyle Larson is sounding the alarm.
Logano was out of the playoffs for a few hours last Sunday night, but Alex Bowman’s disqualification suddenly brought the two-time Cup champion back into the tournament. And before racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Larson found that troubling.
“Joey is dangerously good,” Larson said. “You can never count him anywhere. He’s the guy who takes advantage of (Bowman’s DQ) and it’s like, ‘Shit, man.’ He is a tough competitor. He’s the one to keep an eye on.
Of course, Logano wasted no time in doing exactly what Larson thought was possible. On Sunday, Logano increased his fuel mileage to secure a surprising spot in Championship 4 – though perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise given how many times Logano has done this before.
“They’re proving again that they’re the best at taking an average car and maximizing their day and turning it into wins like this,” Larson said on the road after the race. “You look at his career and he’s had a lot of wins like that. Hats off to them. It’s super impressive to bet like that and lock yourself in.”
By now, everyone knows you can’t give Logano even a shred of daylight in the playoffs; he will catch it and open the door wide. Just look at how this season has gone for the 34-year-old:
• Logano would have missed the playoffs altogether had it not been for a five-run victory at Nashville Superspeedway in which he used his fuel beyond what anyone thought possible.
• Logano was eliminated from the playoffs after Round 2, only to receive a phone call after returning home informing him that he would still compete for a championship thanks to Bowman’s misfortune.
• Logano has so few top fives, so few top 10s and such a low average that he was fired by Joe Gibbs Racing the last time he had those results in the season.
Yet this driver, the man who has scored only the 15th most points this season, is the first to enter the race for the championship. Give an account.
“Never doubt Joey Logano and (crew chief) Paul Wolff when it comes to fuel economy racing,” said Cliff Daniels, Larson’s crew chief. “They’re so good at it and they obviously made it work today.”
Joey Logano was given a second lease on life in these NASCAR Cup Series playoffs and immediately repaid it with a victory Sunday in Las Vegas. (Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
Wolff said the team talked about this exact scenario in their pre-race meeting and Ty Gibbs’ spin caused a caution that put everyone on the edge of the fuel window. Most teams decided they would have to make another pit stop, but the crew chiefs of a handful of drivers – including Logano, Daniel Suarez and Denny Hamlin – decided to go into fuel economy mode and see if they could make it 69 green-flag laps to the finish.
“When you’re not going to win a certain way, you have options to try to win another way,” Hamlin said. “Fuel consumption is our friend. They did.”
Adam Stevens, Christopher Bell’s crew chief, said Logano’s strategy was created by caution falling at the right time. Two laps early or two laps late, Stevens said, “it doesn’t work out that way.” And that was enough to thwart Bell’s dominant performance.
“It happened right where the leaders screwed up,” Stevens said. “You can’t be upset about it. I can’t control this. And it was a legal warning. It wasn’t like a water bottle or anything.
“Sometimes it happens like that. That’s why you’re in the race.
The race leaders, Bell and William Byron, could not afford to play the same strategy as Logano because they used more gas while racing hard in the open air. Logano, with his extraordinary ability to save fuel and Wolff’s hope that the race would continue to the finish, rolled the dice and emerged victorious.
“They really didn’t have the pace to compete, so they took advantage of that,” Byron said. “We’re working very hard up front and using a lot of fuel, so we didn’t really have that opportunity.”
So now Logano is in the championship race for a record sixth time; he will fight for that third title. Will he be the favorite? Absolutely not. But he also wasn’t expected to win in 2018 or 2022, and it wouldn’t shock anyone if he did again.
“I get down on myself every now and then,” Logano said. “(My wife) is like, ‘Just remember 2018. Remember 2022. Those weren’t the greatest years and you’re there. Before you know it, you have a chance.
“Again, the same scenario where we had maybe not the best regular season, but when the salary window opens up in the playoffs, the 22 shows up.”
2. What if?
Here are some alternate storylines we’d be talking about today if a few things had gone differently.
• If Gibbs doesn’t turn to display a warning: Logano certainly isn’t winning the race, and it’s likely that Bell will finish off what would be a dominant performance to lock in the Championship 4. We were going to talk about how Bell has taken the next step in his career, how he’s no longer flying under radar (even though he doesn’t care, as he insisted several times Saturday) and why his third straight championship appearance will finally be his year.
• If Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott don’t crash in Stage 2: Both drivers appeared to be headed for top-10 finishes or better on Sunday, but their accident with Martin Truex Jr. was a setback for the race – and possibly a blowout for the playoffs. Elliott is now likely in must-win territory, and Reddick needs a strong two races (if not a win) to advance, leaving two of the top three drivers in regular-season points on the brink of missing out on Championship 4 .
• If Larson doesn’t have a terrible pit stop: The No. 5 team had one of its worst pit stops (“the biggest pit stop mess I’ve ever seen,” Larson called it) and left the driver two laps short. He bounced back to finish 11th, but the lost points from what would have been a likely top five finish could easily come back to haunt him if anything goes wrong over the next two weeks.
Tyler Reddick’s crash Sunday in Las Vegas leaves him needing two strong finishes — and possibly a win — to make it to the Championship 4. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
3. NASquirks
The last time Bowman learned bad news about himself scrolling through the X, he was at a Taco Bell drive-thru in 2016. That day, Bowman found out he was fired from Tommy Baldwin Racing; the experience scarred him enough that he “didn’t eat at Taco Bell for years afterward,” the driver said.
After the Charlotte Roval race, Bowman received more bad news from his timeline – only this time, he knew something might be coming. Crew chief Blake Harris had called Bowman to tell him there was a problem with the post-race inspection, so Bowman sat by the pool at his home in North Carolina and continued to refresh the X until the news was revealed.
Knowing his iPhone was about to explode with text messages and notifications about Bowman’s elimination from the NASCAR playoffs via an underweight car disqualification — ending what had been a great run — the 31-year-old’s reaction was to throw the device directly into water.
It wasn’t until he pulled it out roughly 20 minutes later that Bowman realized the phone had triggered the crash detection feature when it sank to the bottom of the pool — which automatically dials 911 to alert emergency services. Fortunately, Bowman said, the lack of underwater cell service prevented police from showing up at his home to investigate.
“I guess you could write that I did it out of rage, but really I just didn’t want to see my phone anymore,” Bowman said.
After that, his week got even worse. The next morning, he found that one of his car windows was cracked due to the temperature change with the fall weather. That’s when Bowman learned that the roof on his house was leaking and he had to get a new one.
“It’s just not a great 24 hours for me, but it’s part of life,” he said. “It’s been a week, man.”
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4. Championship 4cast
In this playoff space, we take a look at the current Championship 4 power rankings and compare them to our pre-playoff picks (Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney).
1. Bell (prelims: 1; last week: 1): The push for Bell to stay in that slot throughout the playoffs was vindicated again on Sunday, as he had the fastest car and led a career intermediate track by 155 laps. No, it didn’t close thanks to Logano’s strategic play, but Bell is still in the best position of all to win this year’s championship.
2. Larson (pre-playoffs: 3; last week: 2): Another questionable round start for Larson, but at least this time he salvaged a decent finish despite numerous setbacks throughout the race. Still, it would be a huge upset if Larson isn’t in the title race, and he can certainly win it.
3. Byron (prelims: unranked; last week: 3): Do this four back-to-back top five finishes now for Byron at a crucial time in the playoffs and he would have had another podium result if not for the fuel strategy. The #24 car got off to a slower start than its teammates on Sunday, but a two-tire call plus incremental car improvement helped Byron fight for the win.
4. Logano (preliminaries: unranked; last week: unranked): Even though Logano is locked out, I’d still have him finish fourth in the championship among this group. Call me a doubter. that’s good. He’ll probably continue to prove naysayers wrong, but Logano hasn’t been as fast as other title contenders.
5. The best of the rest
• Daniel Suarez (third): The No. 99 team played the same fuel strategy game as Logano, and it resulted in Suárez’s second top-five finish in the past six months – and tied his career best at an intermediate track.
• John Hunter Nemechek (ninth): It’s been a miserable season overall for Legacy Motor Club, but Sunday’s successful fuel economy gave Nemecek his career-best finish at an intermediate track.
• Corey LaJoie (14th): Another driver who saved his gas, the rejuvenated LaJoie got another top-15 for his new team at Rick Ware Racing and has the 16th-best average over the past two months – better than seven drivers in the playoffs, including Reddick , Truex and Brad Keselowski.
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(Top photo of Joey Logano celebrating Sunday’s win: Sean Gardner/Getty Images)