Joey Logano is on a familiar path heading to Championship 4 race

gettyimages-1437544519 — MARTINSVILLE, VIRGINIA - OCTOBER 29: Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, enters his car during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway on October 29, 2022 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)

During his 2018 championship season, Joey Logano won the first race in the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and benefitted from an immediate shift to focus to Homestead-Miami Speedway, then the site of the season finale.

For the third time in five years, Logano has used a victory in the first Round of 8 as a springboard to the Championship 4. This year, he won the opening race of the round at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and will race for a second Cup title at Phoenix Raceway.

“If I look at our best chances to win the championship, they’ve come after winning the first race in the Round of 8,” Logano said. “Winning here in 2018, that gave us a great advantage. We won in Kansas in 2020 and that was a good help, and now once again winning in Vegas. I think those give us our best chance.

“In 2020, I don’t see anything our team did wrong. In a way, that’s kind of extra motivation to seek revenge after that last run at Phoenix when the tires started shaking and we lost the lead with whatever it was – 40-50 to go – and fall back after cycling on the green flag pit stop to the lead.

“Everything was going the way it’s supposed to, ran the 9 (Chase Elliott) down, passed him, the whole nine—and then giving it away like that. That’s hurt for the last couple years for me, and I can’t say I’m over it, so this is the moment of revenge on that.”