Joey Logano is a champion again.
The driver of the No. 22 car sat on the pole, dominated Stage 1 and never trailed any Championship 4 driver at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday en route to a huge victory and his second NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Logano, 32, was the oldest driver in a young Championship 4 field — and the veteran asserted himself on Sunday.
“We did it!” Logano told NBC Sports, championship smoke in the air. “Oh my God, I’m so excited. Thank you to everybody, my team. You guys are amazing. Gave me a good race car, good pit stop there at the end, got us up in front. Boy that was intense there at the end.”
The Team Penske driver, who also won the 2018 Cup Series crown, has now notched three wins at Phoenix Raceway. But clearly the loss at Phoenix in 2020 — the one where Chase Elliott outdueled Logano late to win the 2020 Cup title — was still on Logano’s mind.
“It’s all about championships,” Logano continued. “That’s what it’s all about, and we worked so hard the last couple weeks trying to put ourselves in position. And everything that happened in 2020, I knew we just wanted to have a solid run and do this today.”
Sunday’s race didn’t feature a ton of passing, but the drama among the Championship 4 drivers — Logano, Elliott, Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell — was ever-present nonetheless.
There was the end of Stage 2, where Logano and Bell stressed over whether they had the fuel to finish the stage.
There was the mid-Stage 3 wreck between Chastain and Elliott, where Chastain got under the No. 9 car and sent him spinning into the wall. Elliott had to go down pit road and got buried a lap down, effectively ending his title hopes.
There was the caution with about 40 laps to go, where Logano’s pit crew executed a flawless stop and extended his lead over Bell, who had a disastrous 19.8-second stop.
And then, despite a late push from Chastain that closed the lead, there was Logano standing tall.
“Thank you thank you thank you!” the future Hall of Famer screamed over the radio right before celebrating the win by spinning at the start-finish line.
Ryan Blaney, Logano’s Team Penske teammate, finished second. Chastain finished third.
Bell finished 10th. Elliott finished 28th.
Kyle Larson, competing for the owner’s championship, finished seventh.
Logano is now one of two active drivers to have multiple Cup championships, joining Kyle Busch. His win helped push Roger Penske to Team Penske’s third owner Cup championship, too.
“I knew going into this thing that we we’re going to win the championship,” Logano said. “I told the guys we were the favorite from Daytona, and we truly believed it, and that’s the difference.”
Logano added: “I had a good team with a bunch of confidence, and we had all the reason in the world to be confident. I’ve never been truly this ready for a championship race. And yeah, we did it, man. I can’t believe it.”
