Joey Logano turned second chances into a full-blown Vegas spectacle. Just a week after finding himself out of NASCAR’s Playoffs—then back in at Charlotte—Logano turned Las Vegas Motor Speedway into his personal stage Sunday, putting on a masterclass in fuel strategy to snag the win in the first race of the Round of 8.
And really, where better for this drama to unfold than in Sin City?
Logano, pushed a mountain of chips into the center of the table, eyes locked, saying, “I call.” And when the dust settled, Logano wasn’t bluffing. He held a Royal flush, punching his ticket to the Championship 4 in Phoenix.
“It’s an incredible turn of events coming from what was at the end of last weekend and what it was like Sunday night after a couple hours after the race and to this Sunday,” Logano said. “This sport is just incredible. Things change, but what a team I’ve got. I stood out there at the start-finish line and it takes a total effort. Obviously, the car had to be pretty good. It was solid, but when you think about what it takes to win a fuel mileage race, you’ve got to have a good engine. You’ve got to have good engineers calculating stuff. You’ve got to have good communication communicating what they see and being able to make sure that I only gave up the right amount of spots on the racetrack and trying to get to the 99 in front and keep the 20 behind.”
Meanwhile, Christopher Bell, despite leading a race-high 155 laps, watched his own hand go bust, and had to settle for second.
“I don’t think I’ve come to terms with it yet,” Bell said. “Just a bummer. Everyone on this team did everything perfect today. This thing was obviously on rails, the pit crew did an amazing job, Adam (Stevens, crew chief) called an amazing race. We did everything we needed to put the Rheem Camry into victory lane, and unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be today.”
VIDEO: Reddick Flips, Truex Slips as Stage 2 Restart Turns Chaotic in Las Vegas
Daniel Suarez rolled the dice on the same fuel-saving strategy as Logano to grab third. William Byron and Alex Bowman rounded out the top five—Bowman’s DQ last week at Charlotte keeping Logano’s Playoff dreams alive.
Bell seemed to have the pace all weekend. Starting from pole he led the first 36 laps but was denied a chance to win Stage 1 when Daniel Hemric and Austin Dillon got together coming into Turn 3 on lap 63. Dillon shot up the track and hard into the outside wall. He was okay but out of the race.
With just a few laps to go before the end of the Stage the leaders pitted with a group led by Martin Truex Jr. who rolled the dice with a two-tire stop, emerging at the front. Bell, with four fresh tires, restarted in seventh. Yet it was Tyler Reddick who swiped the stage win, with Bell following close behind.
Then, disaster struck as Stage 2 got underway. Truex, battling for a top five spot, drifted up the track out of Turn 4, tagging Chase Elliott, who in turn clobbered Reddick and sent him into the outside wall. Reddick’s Toyota pirouetted, tumbling across the grass before finally landing on all fours. He made it back to the pits, but his day was done. Elliott, wounded but stubborn, soldiered on, only to retire eight laps from the finish in 33rd place.
Ryan Blaney, who started from the back after a practice crash, got caught up in the chaos too. Running in the top 15, he had nowhere to go when Brad Keselowski cut low, and he slapped the wall hard. Blaney limped to a 32nd-place finish, eight laps down.
Denny Hamlin’s day was a mess of missed opportunities. He stayed out at the end of Stage 1 while everyone else pitted, hoping to steal track position—but he got swallowed up faster than a bad poker player’s bankroll. Add in an overshot pit stop and his typical slow-pit-crew struggles, and it looked like a recipe for disaster. But by copying Logano’s fuel strategy, Hamlin managed to limp into 8th place.
A top-ten finish doesn’t tell the story for Denny Hamlin at Vegas
“Not a clean day.,” Hamlin said. “That certainly sums it up. You’ll have that. We did the best we could to get the best finish. I thought Chris (Gabehart, crew chief) did a great job to get some sort of finish. Once we lost the track position early, he was doing the best he could to try to get it back through strategy, and then it goes long there, and we fall to the back. Just part of it.”
Kyle Larson had his share of woes too. His crew found a hole in the nose of his car during Stage 1 stops, forcing him to pit again for repairs. Later, a loose wheel sent him back down pit road, dropping him a lap behind. But somehow, he clawed his way back to a respectable 11th place finish.
The final laps were like a game of high-speed chess. Bell pitted on lap 227, while Suarez, Logano, and Hamlin stayed out, betting on fuel conservation. Bell carved his way back through the field like a man possessed, closing the gap as the leaders feathered the throttle to save every drop. With 23 laps left, he was 17.5 seconds behind, chasing down the frontrunners like a predator.
With just five laps to go, Logano seized the lead, and Bell, now in third, was closing in fast. The final lap saw Bell breathing down Logano’s neck, but Logano had just enough fuel left in the tank to hold him off, crossing the line .662 seconds ahead.
Behind them, Truex took sixth, Ross Chastain snagged seventh, while John Hunter Nemechek and Chris Buescher rounded out the top 10. Next stop: Homestead-Miami, where Bell will look for redemption as the defending winner. But it’s Logano who’s rolling in with all the momentum, and with four wins at Vegas—two of them in championship years—you can bet he’s feeling lucky.
“We’re going to the Championship 4 again. It’s real,” Logano said. “… We’re going racing again. What an incredible situation, man. I’m so blessed.”
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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