Bold prediction comes true
Joey Logano makes good with NASCAR title
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Joey Logano felt like the favorite to win the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship, even if nothing on paper backed that up.
He said he told his interior mechanic when he climbed into his No. 22 Ford: “I’m getting in as a driver and getting out as a champion.”
The youngest of the four title contenders, Logano also entered the championship race with the fewest number of wins in 2018 and the worst odds to win it all. Oh, and he was up against drivers so dominant this season that they were nicknamed the Big Three, after combining for 20 victories in 35 races.
But none of that mattered with 12 laps remaining Sunday evening at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The 28-year-old Team Penske driver slayed the giants of Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. to win his first Cup title after a decade at NASCAR’s highest level.
“Maybe one of the coolest parts about this whole thing is we enter up against the best of the best,” Logano said. “No one was in there by accident. To beat the best, I guess that’s what makes this championship feel so good.”
His previous best finish at the 1.5mile South Florida track was fourth — the first time in 2015 and again in 2016, when he ended the season as runner-up in the standings to seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson. But Sunday, Logano hunted down defending champion Truex and snatched the lead away from the No. 78 Toyota with a dozen laps left as the Big Three failed to catch up.
“When it’s time to go, he’s the guy,” team owner Roger Penske said. “There’s no question. You’ve seen his restarts. You see him even when he’s in the back, he’s able to go for it.”
Logano and his team earned every bit of this victory. He was the first driver to advance to the Championship 4 after taking the checkered flag at Martinsville Speedway to open the Round of 8 and had the past three weeks to build a titlewinning car.
With the fastest wheels for what he described as only “short runs,” Logano led the most laps (80) and repeatedly fought off Harvick and Truex in the final stage of the race while his pit crew performed each stop almost perfectly.
The No. 22 Ford team finished the year with the most points of any playoff team after Logano’s third win this season and 21st in his Cup career.
“Execution,” crew chief Todd Gordon said while talking about how the team found its rhythm late in the season.
“We didn’t have all the win stickers down the seat post, but we had speed. … We took the opportunity to learn more this year and not necessarily race the wins as much as race the knowledge so that we could put ourselves in the right position to lead into the playoffs and run to the playoffs. And it worked.”
By the time he was on the last lap, he had a two-second lead over Truex in second, a 3.7-second advantage over Harvick and almost six seconds on Busch. They finished second, third and fourth, respectively.
Before the season-opening Daytona 500, fellow Penske driver Brad Keselowski joked that Logano could smile through anything. “You could kick (him) in the balls, and he’d walk away smiling,” Keselowski teased.
But nothing compared with the toothy, ear-to-ear grin he wore while placing his 11-month-old son, Hudson — dressed in a pinstriped MLB All-Starthemed onesie — in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series trophy and holding the hand of his wife, Brittany, as confetti floated down on top of them.
“You’ve got to have fun with it,” Logano said. “When you see the people you love the most, I think that’s when you break down the most. You think about how much they were there for you all the way through. Through the good times and the bad times, they were there.”