Three times a charm: The NASCAR championship race in Phoenix

step on their necks

The day before the NASCAR championship, Joey Logano said he and his No. 22 crew had to step on the necks of their Championship 4 competition. And so they did. Logano restarted fifth behind only championship contender William Byron in first, but quickly found himself in the lead with 53 laps to go. Soon, he’d stretched his advantage to almost three seconds. 

Teammate and fellow Championship 4 competitor Ryan Blaney, desperate for his second title, followed in hot pursuit. As the laps whittled down, so did the distance between Logano and Blaney. Two seconds, one second, half a second, two-tenths of a second behind. Blaney was bumper to bumper with him. 

“We were looking pretty good to ‘Oh (expletive), here he comes!’ pretty quick,” Logano said.

But it was no use. After 312 miles, Logano emerged victorious in the race and the championship.

“I love the playoffs, I love it man,” Logano said. “What a team, what a Penske battle there at the end.”

Logano was certainly never guaranteed this win. Not after failing pre-race inspection twice before passing on the third and final time, but as a result, couldn’t select his pit stall. In a bizarre moment of levity during the Stage 1 break, the pace car darted down towards pit road and hit the barrels marking the wall separating the pits from the track. The incident brought out a red flag.

It could have taken Logano out of his rhythm, but the champion kept fighting through. Midway through, the No. 22 team’s jackman was replaced midrace, potentially altering any championship-deciding pit stops. Again, Logano and the team fought through it.

“It’s not comfortable, but it seems like as a driver, personally, I’m better that way,” Logano said of thriving under pressure, both from himself and externally. “I think as a team, we thrive under those situations.”

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Sliced Bread

As a young racer, Logano was given the nickname “Sliced Bread” because he was dubbed, well, the best thing since. Coming up to Cup as a bright-eyed 18-year-old tasked with replacing one of the sport’s all-time greats in Tony Stewart at Joe Gibbs Racing, Logano, now 34, has matched his predecessor’s championship total of three, all with Team Penske. Logano joins an exclusive club of only 10 drivers to win three or more championships, solidifying a surefire hall of fame career.

His journey to this spot was not an easy one, nor one without questionable performance in the eyes of fans. Logano would not have made the playoffs if not for a fuel mileage win in five overtimes at Nashville this summer. His next win came in the playoffs at Atlanta, but some were quick to dismiss the superspeedway win.

Then, in the Round of 12, Logano had literally been eliminated from the playoffs at the Charlotte Roval. That is, until eighth-seeded Alex Bowman failed post-race inspection, giving the spot to ninth-seeded Logano entering the Round of 8. Next race, he won at Las Vegas with few bumps, advancing to the Championship 4. Then Logano ran a defensive clinic to seal the deal in Phoenix.

“I’ve got a pretty sweet trophy, and I’m laughing all the way to the bank,” Logano said, addressing those who feel his championship wasn’t earned. “You can have a great regular season. It sees you better for the playoffs right now. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to go all the way to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup Finals or the NBA Finals. That doesn’t matter. It might help you, and it’s the same way in NASCAR.

“So for someone to say this isn’t real, it’s a bunch of bullshit in my opinion, that’s wrong. This is something that everyone knows the rules for when the season starts. And, you know, we figured out how to do it the best and figured out how to win.”

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The other three

William Byron did all he could. It just wasn’t enough.

“We just needed a little bit more,” Byron said. “I felt like we gave it all we had, and that’s something to be proud of. We just didn’t have enough to go fight with the Penske guys.”

Crew chief Rudy Fugle made a decision to leave Byron out while his championship rivals went in for tires, allowing Byron to gain track position in hopes of winning the title. With the speed of Blaney and Logano, it was only a matter of time before Byron was behind them again.

“It was a great strategy there in the final stage to do something different, but we just didn’t have enough.”

Ryan Blaney was able to reach the back bumper of Logano, but couldn’t quite make a true attempt at taking the top spot from Logano. Often, he was either the fastest or second fastest car on the track, flipping back and forth with his Penske teammate. For the second straight year, Blaney finished second in the championship race. This time, without a title to show for it.

“We had a shot, and I just couldn’t really do much when I got there, just coming from far back, I just burned everything I had off of it,” Blaney said. “Joey is one of the best ever, I feel like. I mean, he did an amazing job. Didn’t make any mistakes.”

Reddick could be described as subdued all weekend, and after the race, utterly dejected. 

“We didn’t make any mistakes that took ourselves out of it, we fought as hard as we could,” Reddick said. “Made the car better throughout the day. We did what we needed to do. We just didn’t quite have the speed or quite the restarts we needed to get ahead and hold those guys up or really put up a fight there at the very, very end.”

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Top photo via Imagn Images

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