CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Joey Logano hoped he’d done enough to advance in NASCAR’s playoffs with an eighth-place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
But when he left the track Sunday night, he was four points below the cutline and eliminated from any shot at winning a third Cup Series title.
Then came the phone calls: inspection was taking a long time and there could be a problem with one of the playoff cars. All Logano could do was wait and wonder if there truly was something amiss with Alex Bowman’s car and if it was egregious enough to push Logano into the round of eight.
“NASCAR, man. Expect the unexpected,” Logano said Tuesday. “You just roll with the punches and go with the flow and just continue on. I feel like these days, more and more, there are just crazy things that can happen. I just go with it.”
Sure enough, Bowman’s car was found to be underweight and he was disqualified. The penalty dropped Bowman in the standings, and as soon as Hendrick Motorsports declined Monday night to appeal, Logano was back in title contention.
“I was honestly surprised. I had heard rumors there was a delay in tech, some of those things going on. But usually nothing happens,” Logano said. “Would be in? That’s the first question you have to ask. And then you are still cautiously optimistic, so you just keep going on with your life and prepare for the next race.”
That next race is Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where Logano is a three-time race winner and has started from the pole three different times.
Logano will race over the next three weeks Team Penske teammate and reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, the Hendrick Motorsports trio of William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing for the four spots in the championship-deciding finale.
Should he emerge as the title winner at Phoenix Raceway in November, Logano will be the only active three-time Cup Series champion in NASCAR. Kyle Busch, who did not make the playoffs, is the only active driver alongside Logano with two titles.
Logano said his No. 22 Ford team will not make any changes to its approach as the team heads to Las Vegas, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway in Virginia vying for a spot in the finals.
“Same way if we made it any other way, you go out there and attack the positives,” Logano said. “I feel that we’ve been steadily getting better and improving throughout the season to where we are now. The speed we had at The Roval looked pretty solid to me, to where we are a championship-four caliber race team.
“The stats may not look like it. We may look like we’re underdogs from the outside looking in, but internally we feel very confident in our race team that we can make a run at this thing and get us into the championship four,” Logano continued. “And we’ve seen in the past where if you can get in there, anything can happen at Phoenix.”
It starts Sunday at Las Vegas, where Logano won the 2022 playoff race that pushed him to his second Cup title. Larson won last year’s playoff race at Las Vegas, as well as the spring race there earlier this season.
But Logano likes his odds now that he’s been given this second chance.
“We’ve done it before,” he said, “we can do it again.”