By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Team Penske’s Joey Logano became the first driver to secure a position in the Championship 4 with a shot at the NASCAR Cup Series 2022 Championship thanks to a valiant surge to victory in the final laps of Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Logano, on fresh Goodyear tires, rallied back through the field following a late race pit stop, passing Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain for the lead with three laps remaining and driving off to his third win at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas high banks – a slight .817-second ahead of fellow Playoff driver Chastain, who led a race best 68 of the 267 laps on the afternoon.
“Let’s go get a championship, baby,’’ the 2018 series champion Logano screamed into his team radio after taking the checkered flag in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford.
That pit stop for Logano with 26 laps remaining, dropped him from a top-10 position on track, but the fresh tires were the difference in making up ground on the leaders who did not pit.
And Logano went forward quickly.
“What a great car, the Penske cars were all fast today,” said the 32-year old Logano, who now has three wins in 2022 and 30 in his 15-year career in NASCAR’s top series.
“Oh man, all you want to do is get to the Championship 4 before the season starts and race for the championship and we’ve got the team to do it. I don’t see why we can’t win it at this point. Things are looking really good for us.
“A lot of adversity we fought though in the last 50 laps of so. I thought we were going to win then kinda fell out, got some tires and racing Ross was fun. He did a good job air-blocking me and I was just trying to be patient but eventually I was like, ‘I’ve got to go here.’ “
It was a wild action-packed day at the Las Vegas oval with the eight Playoff drivers experiencing both sides of emotion. Five of them were among the 11 race leaders at various points on the afternoon. And four finished in the top five.
Joe Gibbs Racing driver and Las Vegas native Kyle Busch, who had some pit road issues, finished third, followed by a pair of Playoff drivers: Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, who rounded out the top five. It was an especially impressive performance for Hamlin, who started 31st.
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