There was a moment near the end of the final lap of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix on Sunday when it seemed like Ryan Blaney had finally figured out a way to get around front-runner Joey Logano. A lead that had once been more than three seconds about 40 laps earlier was down to a little more than two-tenths, and Blaney, who clearly had the faster car, was driving his Ford Mustang right to the bumper of his Penske Racing teammate. Both drivers had emerged during NASCAR’s playoffs to be members of the Championship 4 at Phoenix. The winner would take home the Cup. The stakes were as big as they could get.
For Blaney, though, there was just one problem: Logano was about to cross the finish line. The final margin between the two was just 0.330 seconds. The loss denied Blaney, the 2023 champ, his second consecutive title. “I just ran out of time,” he said.
The victory gave Logano his third Cup championship, tying him with six other drivers—including Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough—for third on NASCAR’s all-time list. Only four drivers have more Cups. The win also gave team owner Roger Penske his third straight title; Penske won with Blaney last year and Logano in 2022. Logano has won all his Cups under NASCAR’s ever-changing Chase postseason format. “I love the playoffs,” he joked afterwards.
It was a thrilling finish to what had, for long stretches, been a rather plodding race. Passing is notoriously cumbersome at Phoenix, and at times the racing on Sunday seemed to resemble a parade more than the winner-take-all shootout that NASCAR is hoping for with its playoff system. Logano led 107 of the race’s 312 laps. Christopher Bell led a race-high 143. Blaney had worked so hard to catch Logano in the final laps that he appeared physically drained as he climbed from his car after the race and had to be checked and cleared by NASCAR’s on-track medical team before he could do any interviews. “I was tired, man,” Blaney said. “I was driving hard and huffing and puffing and felt like I was going to pass out after the race.”
It is with good reason that Logano is regarded as one of the best rearview mirror drivers in the sport. He’d gone to the lead on lap 260 coming out of a restart, and he’d immediately gassed his car as far in front of the field as possible. His spotter, Coleman Pressley, told him over the radio that it was time to “manage” his way to the finish. And that’s just what Logano did.
All day he’d been fast coming out of restarts, only to lose pace as the miles clicked by. This time was no different. Blaney closed relentlessly, but Logano—with Pressley helping him find good racing lanes around the track—held him off. “[Losing] was one mistake away,” Logano said. With 10 laps to go and the lead down to less than a second, Pressley told his driver, “Stick the tongue out. Let’s go.”
Like any NASCAR driver worth his paint scheme, Logano praised the members of his team, after the race, from his pit crew to Pressley to his crew chief, Paul Wolfe, who also guided Logano to the title in 2022. But it wasn’t just talk. Not only did the crew for the 22 car overcame a bobble that cost Logano four spots coming out of the first pit stop, but it also ran smoothly after losing its jack man to an undisclosed illness in the middle of the race. (He was replaced by the jack man from Penske driver Austin Cindric’s crew.)
“I don’t know if I’m the best driver, Logano said afterwards, “but I’ve got the best team.”
He’s not so bad himself. In many ways, Logano still resembles the adenoidal kid who made his Cup debut at 18 near the end of the 2008 season. His neck is long, and his frame is still spindly. But his NASCAR career has some real heft. He came into the sport as a phenom, and then struggled to find success. But he now seems like a lock for the Hall of Fame. Sunday was his 36th Cup victory. He’s won at least one race in 13 consecutive seasons, the longest streak in racing. And at 34, he still has plenty of laps left to turn.
And all joking aside, there is no one better in the Cup playoffs: 15 of those 36 wins have come in the Chase, including three in 2024. Logano struggled during the regular season, winning only one time and finishing 15th in the standings. But he dominated when it mattered most. One day after the death of NASCAR legend Bobby Allison—who won 85 Cup races but only one championship during his 25-year career—a new great has emerged.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Joey Logano Wins Third NASCAR Cup Title After Dominating the Playoffs Once Again.
