October 16, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Joey Logano gambles and wins at Las Vegas

If Joey Logano wins the NASCAR Cup championship, he can thank Paul Wolfe for making the winning call at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

After a problem on pit road, returning for fresh tires a dozen laps later made all the difference for the end game of the South Point 400.

Although Ross Chastain battled and blocked as long as he could, with 13-lap newer tires on the No. 22 Ford it was game, set and match for Logano on Sunday.

“We're racing for a championship! Let's go,” exclaimed Logano after climbing from the car. “Man, what a great car. Penske cars were all fast. All of them were really fast today. Oh, man, all you want to do is get to the Championship 4 when the season starts and race for a championship, and we've got the team to do it. I don't see why we can't win at this point.”

Logano started fifth, but finished second in both stages. He showed his hand early in the final stage after seizing the lead out of the pits. His teammate Ryan Blaney appeared to be his greatest threat—until hitting the Turn 2 wall on Lap 228. Unfortunately, when Logano pitted, the crew had trouble removing the left rear wheel and the No. 22 was buried in the field.

When Daniel Suarez spun off of Turn 4 10 laps later, Wolfe called Logano back to the pits. The strategy paid off for the No. 22 team with Logano’s third win at Las Vegas, his third win of the season and a spot in the Championship 4 for the fifth time in his career.

“Things are looking really good for us, awesome Pennzoil Mustang, this bad boy, and man, just a lot of adversity fought through the last 50 laps or so,” Logano said. “I thought we were going to win and then we kind of fell out and then had the tires, and racing Ross was fun. He was doing a good job air blocking me, and just trying to be patient, and eventually I was like, I've got to go here.

“Just great to win out here in Vegas again, and it means so much getting to the championship.”

Chastain trailed Logano by .817-seconds at the line. Kyle Busch, Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five. Chastain led a race-high 68 laps—including 13 of the last 16. But once Logano used a lapped car as a pick, he was able to move to the inside of Chastain and make the pass.

“That was all we had,” said Chastain, who is second in the standings behind Logano. “There was a clear difference in tires there. So we fully believed that we could hold him off and win the race on the tires we had, and Joey did a good job of getting through the field. At the end there, I hope I'm racing that guy for a really long time.

“For our Tootsie's Chevy…like we've been saying all year, this is the arrival of Trackhouse, and I wouldn't want to be doing it with anybody else.”

Kyle Busch forged a remarkable comeback with his podium finish on Sunday. He started the caution parade with a spin off of Turn 4  and into the grass on Lap 78—which ended the stage with Bubba Wallace taking the green-white-checker. During the sixth of eight cautions—triggered by Blaney hitting the wall—the No. 18 Toyota lost a left front wheel coming off of pit road. He dropped to the rear, but with newer tires fought his way to the front over the final 37 laps.

“We certainly clawed our way back from a lot,” Busch said. “To begin with, we had a really fast M&M’s Toyota Camry TRD so that certainly helped a lot of things to be able to come back up through the field there a couple of times. Had tires there at the end, had a good restart, punched a couple holes and got ourselves in good position there.

“A good, solid finish, but wish we had a little more obviously, want to win before the year’s out and that would mean a lot to a lot of people. We got a top-10 in points to go get and we’re working on it.”

Of the Playoff drivers, Briscoe’s recovery was the sportiest. Wallace lapped him in Stage 1. In Stage 2, there was contact with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. With strategy, the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Ford worked his way to the point by Lap 246. But his strength was all up front in clean air.

“We kept ourselves in the ballgame and still have a lot of work to do but we still have a chance,” Briscoe said. “We are running the best we have all year long and that is about all you can ask for.”

Perhaps the most bizarre encounter of the afternoon came in Stage 2 when Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace collided on the front stretch on Lap 95—collecting Christopher Bell in the process. Larson slid into the No. 45 Toyota which bounced off the wall and turned back into the No. 5 Chevy. Wallace was fuming after showing his muscle in the first stage and leading 29 laps. He confronted Larson after climbing from his car.

“When you get shoved in the fence, deliberately like he (Larson) did, trying to force me to lift—the steering was gone, and he just so happened to be there,” said Wallace, who finished 36th. “I hate it for our team. We had a super-fast car – not on short-run speed, we were kind of falling back there and (Kyle) Larson wanted to make it a three-wide dive bomb.

“He never cleared me. I don’t lift. I know I’m kind of new to running up front, but I don’t lift. I wasn’t even in a spot to lift, he never lifted either and now we are junk. Piss poor move on his execution.”

Larson, the defending NASCAR Cup champion who was eliminated from the Playoffs last week at Charlotte, was scored 35th. He was surprised by Wallace showing his displeasure.

“I obviously made an aggressive move into (turn) three; got in low, got loose and chased it up a bit,” Larson said. He (Wallace) got to my right front, and it got him tight and into the wall. I knew he was going to retaliate. He had a reason to be mad, but his race wasn’t over until he retaliated.

“It is what it is. Just aggression turned into frustration and he retaliated.”

Still, Bell was the biggest loser. After coming off of a win last week at the Roval to advance to the Round of 8, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota finished 34th.

Non-Playoff contenders completed the top 10 including polesitter Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, AJ Allmendinger and Austin Dillon.

The NASCAR Cup tour rolls on to Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend.