Joey Logano stole the whole show on Championship 4 Sunday at Phoenix Raceway in NASCAR’s season finale.
The Team Penske racer completed his Cinderella story by holding off teammate Ryan Blaney and winning the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at the desert track in Avondale, Ariz., for his third career title.
After passing William Byron by going from fifth to first in one lap following a restart with 54 laps left, Logano kept his No. 22 Ford out front and went on to win by 0.33 seconds over defending champion Blaney.
The victory gave owner Roger Penske his third straight Cup title in addition to this year’s Rolex race at Daytona and the Indianapolis 500.
Logano was inserted into the championship playoffs after Alex Bowman was disqualified following the regular-season finale Southern 500 at Darlington.
He parlayed that into his third title — also winning it in 2018 and 2022 — and became the 10th racer all-time to win at least three Cup crowns.
“I love the playoffs,” said Logano, 34, who led 99 laps and won three of the 10 playoff races. “What a race and what a Team Penske battle there at the end. I had a good restart and was able to get in front of the 12 (of Blaney). We had long-run speed there and it was all I had to hold him off.”
Blaney repeated his runner-up showing at Phoenix, but it was not good enough for a title this time.
“I’m worn out. I just couldn’t quite get there,” said Blaney, who restarted fifth as Logano passed Byron and drove off. “The restart didn’t really work out. … I had to work really hard to get by (Kyle Larson and Byron).”
Byron, Larson and Christopher Bell completed the top five in the four-caution race. Title contender Tyler Reddick was sixth.
Carson Hocevar finished 18th and earned Rookie of the Year honors.
Two-time champion Kyle Busch was 21st and failed to win over the 36 races, ending his NASCAR-record streak of 19 consecutive seasons with at least one win.
In his final start as a full-time driver, 2017 Cup winner Martin Truex Jr. brought them to green from the pole position at the 1-mile track, but teammate Ty Gibbs created the first caution when his No. 54 Toyota wrecked on Lap 2 in a single-car incident.
Logano powered past Truex on the restart and set the pace in the 312-lap event to close 2024. Soon, all four of the title contenders were running inside the top 10 before the halfway point of 60-lap Stage 1, which Logano won after leading 54 laps.
However, Logano’s pit crew had difficulties on the right side during the pit stop, gridding him fifth when the group led by Chase Elliott left pit road with Byron and Blaney running in third and fourth.
In the race’s oddest moment as the field was about to restart, the Toyota pace car turned late onto pit road and made hard contact with the sand-filled yellow barrels abutting the beginning of the pit road outer wall. That wreck created a red-flag period.
A week after being penalized for wall-riding on the final turns at Martinsville and eliminated from title contention, Bell had the look of a champion on the rare Champ 4 weekend when Joe Gibbs Racing did not have an entry among the quartet of Cup seekers.
A day after saying he felt wronged by NASCAR and “cheated” out of a title chance, Bell led a race-best 143 laps and had a strong No. 20 JGR Toyota for most of Stage 2.
However, Blaney showed his strength by moving past Bell in the final laps as Penske Fords pulled off the segment sweep in the first 185 circuits around the slightly banked layout.
With Bell leading following Stage 2’s conclusion, Blaney, Byron and Logano occupied the next three spots, while Reddick slotted ninth with 117 laps left.
–Field Level Media
