1. Of Course Joey Logano Is Going to Be In the Championship 4
If you’ve been following NASCAR for the last decade or so but just woke up from a six-month cryogenic suspension today (and yes, that’s a very specific set of circumstances, but just go with it), it would be no surprise for you to learn that Joey Logano had secured a spot in the Championship 4.
That’s what he does after all. Every even-numbered year, like clockwork. Or Thanos. Inevitable.
But that wouldn’t tell even half the story this year. Logano won just once during the regular season, after all, and was bad at both the beginning and end of the campaign with three finishes of 28th or worse in the first and last five regular season races.
He wasn’t going to make the Round of 8 either except for a penalty to Alex Bowman. It makes no sense that he’d win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway … except that he did the same thing in 2022, locking himself into the finale right away.
Logano is on a run that is simultaneously unbelievable and perfectly logical at the same time. Yet there’s something else that can’t be overlooked, and that’s the idea that Team Penske simply has this playoff format figured out in a way other organizations don’t.
Even aside from two years ago, Logano won the first race in the Round of 8 in 2020 and 2018, and at two different tracks (Kansas Speedway and Martinsville Speedway). He was hardly the favorite to win once he made it to Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2018 or Phoenix Raceway in 2022, yet he did it.
The same could be said about Ryan Blaney last year. He, too, carried just one regular season triumph into the postseason, but caught fire from Talladega Superspeedway and won it all.
So maybe it’s not just Logano, but Penske that is inevitable. But in an even year, it’s his turn again, and why in the world would you bet against him to win it all at this point?
2. Has Denny Hamlin’s Last Best Chance Already Come and Gone?
Yours truly got into NASCAR as a Mark Martin fan, and thus am no stranger to seeing a driver do everything but win a NASCAR Cup Series championship. Denny Hamlin winning races and falling short of the season title? That’s not a foreign concept by any means.
It’s just that Hamlin felt like he would be different. Maybe it was because he combined his winning ways with a “What, me worry?” attitude. Everything would work out. Eventually. One of these seasons.
Early on, it looked like 2024 might be it. Hamlin took the checkered flag thrice (always wanted to use that word in an appropriate context) in the first 11 races. Even after the last of those triumphs, at Dover Motor Speedway, he ripped off a run of four consecutive top-five results. Hamlin was feeling it as recently as early June.
Since then? Not so much. From Sonoma Raceway through Watkins Glen International, Hamlin finished 23rd or worse eight times, compared to four top-10 finishes. He’s been better since Bristol Motor Speedway, but he hasn’t been the car to beat in any of those races or threatened to win.
Hamlin has as much going on as anyone in the sport. The team he co-owns with Michael Jordan is right at the heart of the charter flap with NASCAR. He’s got a family. He’s a podcaster. It’s frankly amazing he’s stayed at the top of his game as long as he has.
He’s also 43, and Father Time never stays in the rearview mirror forever. The change in his fortunes — and really, his pure speed — makes it fair to wonder if the first part of 2024 was the tail end of his peak. Maybe his “life comes at you fast” moment is unfolding right now and that season-ending trophy will remain just out of his grasp forever.
3. Wait, Is It Bad That Logano is Racing for the Championship?
Sorry, we can’t leave the driver of the No. 22 Ford behind just yet. With Logano headed to Phoenix for a shot at his third Cup Series championship, it’s worth repeating that he didn’t make the Round of 8 on performance alone. Had Bowman not been disqualified at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, he wouldn’t have that opportunity. Some might say he doesn’t deserve it.
Would it take some of the shine off the crown if Logano prevails? Should he get the proverbial asterisk for winning championship No. 3 in a few weeks?
In a word, no. Say what you want about the way NASCAR assesses penalties, but it’s hardly the only sport where DQs can shake things up. The Olympics, for example, have plenty of stories of results being changed and people on the podium only after others are ruled to have violated the rules.
It’s not Logano’s fault he was the beneficiary of Bowman’s car being found underweight. He still needed to be ninth to be elevated to eighth. And the other seven drivers had a chance to claim the win at Las Vegas that he used to ensure he advanced. They just couldn’t.
Logano has nothing for which to apologize, and you can be sure he’ll be too busy celebrating to even entertain the notion should he find the way to victory lane on Nov. 10. No asterisks here.
4. These Next 2 Races Are as NASCAR Playoffs as They Get
If part of the point of the NASCAR playoffs format is to make winning paramount, then congratulations because the next two weeks of the Round of 8 are exactly what is on the wrapper.
True, someone will make it to Phoenix without a victory. That’s what happens when there are four championship spots and three races in the round. More than likely, however, it will be whoever has the least points out of Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson and William Byron, because everyone else is at least 27 points back.
Former champs Blaney and Chase Elliott are in especially big trouble. They are mathematically alive on points, but for all intents and purposes need a victory, and a non-contending driver winning at Homestead would only intensify that pressure at Martinsville.
That’s probably fine with NASCAR, which invented this system at least in part to set up circumstances like this. It might not be the ideal way to determine who is competing for the title in the final race of 2024, but you can’t say it’s not going to be interesting.
5. This Week’s NASCAR Fan Outrage May Not Even Relate to Something at the Track
OK, outrage might be a little strong, something that belongs in a particularly clickbait-esque headline. Still, there’s little doubt that a fair number of people feel some type of way about Teresa Earnhardt, widow of the late, legendary Dale Earnhardt, making plans to sell off a big chunk of what used to be the Intimidator’s farm.
Mooresville Technology Park doesn’t sound like much of a way to remember one of the greatest to ever wheel a stock car, but it’s Teresa Earnhardt’s land and she can do with it as she pleases. Let’s just say that’s far from a unanimous take, though, and it definitely wouldn’t hurt if the plans to redevelop that land included a monument to Dale Sr. of some sort.
Just a thought.
Teresa Earnhardt is the Yoko Ono of NASCAR. The Dragon Lady of Motorsports. The Meghan Markle to King Dale the First. I could go on, but I won’t.
It’s that time of year.. the leaves are falling, the mosquitos have gone back to Hell, and if you listen hard, you can hear the sound of someone choking coming from JGR.
Got my tix for Martinsville. My wife is a New Yorker who married a good ol’ boy from SC (me), but she likes NASCAR and pulls for Larson. She’s spent a few weekends in the infield at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but this will be her first trip to a short track race and her first Martinsville hotdog, or as they call ‘em in NY, Coney dogs.
Have fun and no way she isn’t going to like it.
Have fun. Martinsville was always a favorite of ours