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October 15, 2024
By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service
It wasn’t Friday the 13th. It was Sunday the 13th, but just like Jason Voorhees from the well-known horror franchise, Joey Logano is back—and ready to frighten seven other survivors in the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
It’s an even-numbered year after all.
When the Bank of America ROVAL 400 ended on Sunday afternoon at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course, Logano had failed to advance to the Round of 8 by four points, thanks to a determined charge through the field by Regular Season Champion Tyler Reddick.
Then came the deus ex machina in the form of post-race inspection. The No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Alex Bowman failed minimum weight requirement and was disqualified, eliminating Bowman from the Playoffs and awarding the final spot to Logano.
By the time he heard rumblings of Bowman’s inspection issue, Logano already had started to move on.
“It takes a little bit to get your thoughts collected, and honestly, by the time I was driving home with my wife, we were talking about something that was far more important than what we were doing at the race track,” Logano said.
That’s when he started to hear the rumors, and shortly thereafter came the phone call that made it official—Logano was in the Round of 8, with the even-numbered mojo still in play.
The two-time Cup Series champion has qualified for the Championship 4 race in each of the even-numbered years starting with the introduction of the elimination format in 2014. In 2018 and 2022, Logano claimed his titles.
In fact, Team Penske drivers have won the championship for the past two seasons, with Ryan Blaney taking the title last year. Both Blaney and Logano are part of the Round of 8, four and 11 points below the current cut line but very much in play as the series heads for Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Logano has three Las Vegas victories on his resume and one each at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway, the final two venues in the Round of 8. It would be a mistake not to take him seriously, even though he enters the round in eighth place.
In a Zoom conference with reporters on Tuesday, Logano was philosophical about a season in which the unusual has become the norm.
“It’s NASCAR, man—expect the unexpected,” Logano said. “I feel like these days, more and more, there’s just seasons like this, just more crazy things that can happen than ever before. A lot of that’s due to the Next Gen car, but it just seems like…
“Last night I was putting my son to bed, and he likes reading those yearbooks about how the season went, and we were reading one from 2020 or 2021—I’m not sure. He started reading the finishing order, and the top 10 was almost the same every weekend, same top 10 cars.
“Now, you look at the top 10, and it’s different every week. The game has changed. The car has changed everything we used to know about NASCAR… If you look at the way we race on the track, the tracks we go to—it can happen.”
After the points reset last Sunday, the only driver remotely comfortable with his position entering the Round of 8 is six-time race winner Kyle Larson, who tops the standings with a 33-point cushion above the current cut line.
Second-place Christopher Bell’s margin of error is just 13 points in a closely-packed group of seven trying to reach the Championship 4.
“We can point our way in,” Logano said. “We’re only 11 out. That’s not a lot of points, by no means. It can happen very quickly.
“So, it’s one race at a time. Right now, our focus is on Las Vegas, and we’ll try to maximize the day there.”
