Even-Year Joey Logano is Inevitable, Confirmed

1. Of Course Joey Logano Is Going to Be In the Championship 4

If you’ve been following NASCAR for the last decade or so but just woke up from a six-month cryogenic suspension today (and yes, that’s a very specific set of circumstances, but just go with it), it would be no surprise for you to learn that Joey Logano had secured a spot in the Championship 4.

That’s what he does after all. Every even-numbered year, like clockwork. Or Thanos. Inevitable.

But that wouldn’t tell even half the story this year. Logano won just once during the regular season, after all, and was bad at both the beginning and end of the campaign with three finishes of 28th or worse in the first and last five regular season races.

He wasn’t going to make the Round of 8 either except for a penalty to Alex Bowman. It makes no sense that he’d win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway … except that he did the same thing in 2022, locking himself into the finale right away.

Logano is on a run that is simultaneously unbelievable and perfectly logical at the same time. Yet there’s something else that can’t be overlooked, and that’s the idea that Team Penske simply has this playoff format figured out in a way other organizations don’t.

Even aside from two years ago, Logano won the first race in the Round of 8 in 2020 and 2018, and at two different tracks (Kansas Speedway and Martinsville Speedway). He was hardly the favorite to win once he made it to Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2018 or Phoenix Raceway in 2022, yet he did it.

The same could be said about Ryan Blaney last year. He, too, carried just one regular season triumph into the postseason, but caught fire from Talladega Superspeedway and won it all.

So maybe it’s not just Logano, but Penske that is inevitable. But in an even year, it’s his turn again, and why in the world would you bet against him to win it all at this point?

2. Has Denny Hamlin’s Last Best Chance Already Come and Gone?

Yours truly got into NASCAR as a Mark Martin fan, and thus am no stranger to seeing a driver do everything but win a NASCAR Cup Series championship. Denny Hamlin winning races and falling short of the season title? That’s not a foreign concept by any means.

It’s just that Hamlin felt like he would be different. Maybe it was because he combined his winning ways with a “What, me worry?” attitude. Everything would work out. Eventually. One of these seasons.

Early on, it looked like 2024…