Hell hath no fury like Joey Logano in an even-numbered year.
The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford made the most of his new playoff life, going 73 laps on one fuel tank to win the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and punch his ticket to the Championship 4.
Logano has made the Championship 4 in every even-numbered year since the inception of the current playoff format in 2014.
A Tale of 2 Pit Strategies at the End
As aforementioned, pit strategy played a big part in the thrill of victory for Logano and the agony of defeat for Christopher Bell.
It all began when the race’s fifth and final caution came out on lap 194 for Ty Gibbs spinning on the backstretch. This brought all of the lead lap cars down pit road with 73 laps left, just a bit beyond the projected fuel window of 62-67 laps.
As the final green flag run progressed, the field began to splinter in strategy, with some opting to stretch the fuel tank to the end while others pitted about halfway through the run for fresh tires. Logano and No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe opted to roll the dice on fuel, while No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens called Bell to the pit stall on lap 229.
This set the stage to see which strategy would win the day in the desert. At first, it looked as though Daniel Suarez would reach victory lane one race after his Round of 12 elimination. But then the superior speed in Logano’s Ford kicked in, passing Suarez’s Chevrolet with only six laps remaining.
From there, it was a matter of Logano holding off the considerably faster Bell to take the checkered flag, despite the latter leading 155 of the 267 laps. On pit road afterwards, Bell rued the No. 20 team’s missed opportunity to win their way to Phoenix.
“It was going to take the right move to get by [Logano],” Bell said of the closing laps. “We had a win right in our fingertips.”
If the race had been the South Point 405, then there’s a good chance Stevens’ strategy call works and Bell wins the race. But with such a dominant car, the No. 20 team might have been better served to stretch the fuel like Logano and maintain the dominant track position they held most of the day.
Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson Bounce Back From Pit Road Peril
For two other Round of 8 playoff drivers, pit road turned into a little shop of horrors on Sunday (Oct. 20).
In particular, Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 team had an eventful afternoon with their pit stops. It started for Chris Gabehart and his crew with a slow 13.4-second pit stop on lap 33. Twenty years ago, that stop would have been great, but in the Next Gen era, it cost Hamlin nine spots.
As a result, Hamlin missed out on stage one points, and Gabehart chose to keep him on the racetrack while all the other lead lap cars pitted after stage one. The race restarted on lap 88, and by lap 100, Hamlin fell back to 17th with his worn tires, pitting on lap 116 for fresh rubber.
But that was not all for Hamlin. Following a 19th-place finish in stage two, Hamlin pitted but had to double back to his stall to tighten a loose left-rear wheel, costing him even more track position.
After that, Hamlin was able to run a clean race down the stretch, and the No.11 team salvaged an eighth-place finish. Hamlin will go into Homestead-Miami Speedway 27 points below the cut line, but it could have been worse all things considered.
Pit road was also a perilous place for last week’s winner, Kyle Larson. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet started stage two from the rear after getting debris off his grill.
Larson’s issues were compounded by a slow green-flag pit stop on lap 125, and then having come back to the service of his crew to tighten the left-rear wheel.
Consequently, Larson went one lap down, but he caught a big break with the Gibbs caution, earning the free pass to get back on the lead lap. Larson nearly rallied back to the top 10, coming home in the 11th position.
Larson will now head to one of his better tracks at Homestead with a decent 35-point cushion on the cut line after what No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels called “one of the hardest fought 11th-place finishes we’ve had.”
Look Ahead to Next Week
The Round of 8 goes from one mile-and-a-half to another with the running of the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday, Nov. 3. Race coverage will start at 2:00 p.m. on NBC.
While Homestead is the same length as Las Vegas, it has an older surface that tends to be more abrasive on tires, so four-tire calls may be more commonplace next weekend.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.