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Joey Logano has secured his spot in the Championship 4 after winning the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This is Logano’s third win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the Cup Series, third win of the 2022 season and 30th Cup Series win of his career.
Logano made a move to the bottom of Ross Chastain to take the lead coming out of Turn 4 with three laps to go and ultimately held off Chastain for the victory in Sin City. Logano led two times for a total of 32 laps.
“I knew coming down to the end that I had a tire advantage [over Chastain] and I knew what was on the line,” Logano said. “It’s a possible championship on the line right now.”
Chastain led a race-high four different times for 68 laps in total. Chastain finished second to Logano.
After the South Point 400, the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Standings are as follows:
Place | Racer | Points | Pts Behind Cutline |
First | Joey Logano (1 Win) | 4084 | -- |
Second | Ross Chastain | (-21 points) | -- |
Third | Chase Elliott | (-22 points) | -- |
Fourth | Denny Hamlin | (-33 points) | -- |
Fifth | William Byron | (-39 points) | 6 pts |
Sixth | Chase Briscoe | (-42 points) | 9 pts |
Seventh | Ryan Blaney | (-44 points) | 11 pts |
Eighth | Christopher Bell | (-56 points) | 23 pts |
*Logano is locked into the Championship 4 regardless of his race outcomes over the next two outings.
If the Championship 4 was to start today, the top 4 drivers (Logano, Chastain, Elliott, Hamlin) would all be competing for the championship. Hamlin represents the “cutline” in the standings. That race will take place next month in Phoenix.
“Everyone raises their game,” Logano said of this time of year. “I love the playoffs. The attitude we bring to the table as a team is that you love this part of the year because you have the opportunity to do something great and ultimately win the goal that you set back in February, which is to win the championship.”
The next race in the Round of 8 of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will take place next Sunday, Oct. 23, at the Homestead-Miami Speedway for the Dixie Vodka 400. Green flag is set to wave at approximately 11:30 a.m. PST and can be seen on NBC.
Tempers flared early in Stage 2 when Kyle Larson slid into Bubba Wallace coming off Turn 4, forcing Wallace to hit the wall. Wallace quickly retaliated by slamming his McDonalds Toyota into the right rear quarter panel of Larson, crashing both vehicles and collecting Christopher Bell as well.
“Larson tried to make it a three-wide dive bomb, never cleared me and I don’t lift,” Wallace said.
Larson said he understood why Wallace was mad and he understood the retaliation move.
Wallace won Stage 1, leading 24 laps in the stage and was awarded 10 stage points for winning the stage.
Tyler Reddick led the most laps in Stage 1 with 32 laps led.
Other lap leaders in the stage included Daniel Suarez (15), Austin Cindric (8) and Ricky Stenhouse (1).
There was one caution for an incident in Stage 1 when Kyle Busch had a tire go down that caused him to spin coming out of Turn 4 and slide down the front stretch on Lap 79 of the stage.
Ryan Blaney won Stage 2 and led the most laps in the stage with 37 laps led. Chastain led 22 laps, Suarez led 16 laps, Denny Hamlin led 5 laps and Wallace led 5 laps in Stage 2 before his incident with Larson.
Blaney had another race where he was in position for potentially his first win of the 2022 season and found trouble in the later portions of the race. He had a tire go down which caused him to have heavy contact with the outside wall in Turn 2 and spin for further contact with the inside retaining wall on the back stretch.
Prior to that, he had a solid run going where he racked up 16 stage points through the first two stages.