Six races ago, Joey Logano was 20th in the driver standings, 31 points behind the cutoff for the Chase and 349 points behind leader Denny Hamlin, and his rather dismal season had many talking about the three-time NASCAR Cup champion possibly missing this year’s post-season.
After all, in the season’s first 18 races he had recorded only five top-10 finishes, no victories and there was a four-race stretch where his best finish was 30th.
“We know Darlington was probably the low point of our season early on,” veteran crew chief Paul Wolfe said about the April race where they qualified 29th and finished 33rd, three laps off the pace.
However, they kept pushing forward and then came North Wilkesboro, the season’s 21st race. The team capitalized in the first Cup points race held at the historic short track since 1996. They dominated the 450-lap race, leading 323 laps, en route to Logano’s first victory this season. The Team Penke organization also knew short tracks were its strength, and starting with North Wilkesboro, three of the next four races fell into their wheelhouse.
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Joey Logano won by 0.392-second.
In Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, Logano led six times for 95 laps, including the last 25. Logano’s Ford was strong, but pit strategy played a key role. With 38 laps remaining, Logano and second place Chase Briscoe pitted. Both received four tires, but Logano narrowly beat Briscoe off pit road. Even though Briscoe made several runs at Logano, he could never pass him and Logano eventually took a 0.392-second victory over the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
“We actually wanted to pit a lap or two earlier than we did,” Wolfe admitted. “We kind of got stuck out with the traffic. I’m obviously communicating with the spotter, Coleman (Pressley), without letting the teams around us know what lap we’re pitting. So, our plan was, before we even passed him (Briscoe), to come and jump him. If we get one lap here sooner, that’s enough to jump the guy, but the way it worked out we ended up passing him and then pitting.”
With two races remaining in the regular season, Logano is now ninth in the standings, having gone from 20th to ninth in six races.
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Chase Briscoe led 171 laps.
“We’ve been able to switch our goals from making the Chase to winning the championship,” Logano said.
Even though Briscoe had to settle for second, it was the Indiana driver’s best-ever finish at Richmond. Prior to this year’s race, his best finish at the 0.750-mile track had been 11th in April 2022 and July 2023.
“I don’t know what more I needed,” a frustrated Briscoe said. “I thought that last run I was a little bit better than him.”
At one point, Briscoe reported brake shake in his Toyota, but he said he had “great brakes” for the majority of the race and it was to his advantage.
“I could get into the corner so deep compared to everyone,” Briscoe said. “As I kind of lost that, I lost my advantage. I became not mediocre, but I wasn’t quite as strong as what I needed to be to maintain there.
“Prior run to the (last) pit stop, I just lost brakes, got really, really loose. Gave up a three-second advantage. That was ultimately the difference.”
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports feature category. During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication’s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.