Logano ready for Round of 8 resurrection

LAS VEGAS — It was a little over two hours after Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 ended that Joey Logano knew he’d have a chance at racing in the Round of 8.

The race wrapped up around 5:47 p.m. ET. The results of post-race tech inspection became clear just after 8 p.m. ET:

NASCAR officials found Alex Bowman’s car didn’t meet minimum weight requirements in inspection, disqualifying Bowman from the race and knocking him out of the playoffs by 20 points, instead of him making it by nine.

On the other hand, it led to Joey Logano making the Round of 8 by 20 points, instead of missing it by four points behind Tyler Reddick.

“I was obviously surprised,” Logano said. “And I was like, ‘Well, would we be in?’ That’s the first question you have to ask and obviously the answer was yes, and then you’re still kind of cautiously optimistic because you’re thinking, ‘Well, there probably will be an appeal if there is and we may not know until later,’ so you kind of keep going on with your life and preparing for the next race.”

Then, Hendrick Motorsports stated Monday that they will not appeal the disqualification, solidifying Logano’s second chance at even-year glory.

Since the inception of the elimination format in 2014, Logano has made the Championship race five times – 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022.

History suggests Logano is going to do it again but his numbers suggest otherwise. So far, he has two wins, five Top-5 finishes, 10 Top-10s and three poles in 32 races with 301 laps led and an average finish of 18.0 this season.

Logano hasn’t had this few of Top-5s and laps led in a season since 2012 (two Top-5s, 190 laps led) or this few of Top-10s and as low of an average finish since 2011 (6 Top-10s, 19.1 average finish).

But, he’s in. All it takes is one win to get him back to the Championship 4.

“I feel like we’ve been steadily getting better and improving throughout the season to where we are now. I feel confident in the speed we have in our car. Kansas, we had a lot of speed and almost won the first stage there. We have to clean up a couple issues on the execution side. The speed we also had this weekend at the Roval looked pretty solid to me, to where we are a Championship 4 caliber race team,” Logano said. 

In the Round of 12 at Kansas Speedway, Logano and teammate Ryan Blaney had the strongest cars on the long run and proved they could easily run down Christopher Bell and pass him, even when he had winning speed in his car.

Using the speed from Kansas, a prime opportunity lies ahead at sister track Las Vegas Motor Speedway and at Homestead-Miami Speedway, another intermediate track.

If his Championship 4 hopes hinge on Martinsville Speedway, Logano shouldn’t be worried. That track has been a haven for him.

Logano hasn’t finished outside of the top-10 at the Virginia short track in five years (March 24, 2019). In the spring, he led 84 laps and nearly won stage two before his tires fell off late in the run, dropping him to fifth.

On the day, he finished sixth. A respectable finish but behind four drivers currently in the Round of 8 – William Byron, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney.

Grind time is prime time for Joey Logano, though. Anything can happen now that he is in the Round of 8.

“We’ve seen it in the past where you get in there and anything can happen at Phoenix. The goal right now is to look at the next three races and how do we maximize that. We can point our way in. We’re only 11 out, so it’s not a lot of points by no means. It can happen very quickly, so one race at a time. Right now, the focus is Vegas and we’ll try to maximize the day there,” he said.

Logano has two Top-10 finishes – a win in October 2022 and a ninth-place finish in the spring – and poles in the last two spring races in five NextGen-era NASCAR Cup Series races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Last weekend at the Charlotte Roval, Logano finished eighth after earning 47 points. It was his second Top-10 finish of this year’s playoffs and the points total was tied with Atlanta for the most he’s earned in a single playoff race so far.