On a day full of improbable turns of events in the NASCAR playoffs, Joey Logano executed in a fuel-mileage race to the finish, passing Daniel Suarez with five laps to go and then holding off Christopher Bell to win the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, putting him in the Championship 4 with his third win of the 2024 season. Logano's victory came only one week after he had been eliminated from the playoffs by the checkered flag at the Charlotte Roval, only to be put back in the Round of 8 after Alex Bowman's team failed post-race tech inspection.
While many of the leaders chose to pit with just under 40 laps to go, Logano was among a group of cars that elected to try and save fuel to the finish and build enough of a gap that Bell and other cars with a full tank of fuel and fresh tires could not pass them. While Logano spent much of the final run in second, he turned up the wick in the final laps, passing Daniel Suarez with assistance from teammate Ryan Blaney, who also served as a pick that prevented Bell from catching him on the final lap.
South Point 400 unofficial results
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #99 - Daniel Suarez
- #24 - William Byron
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #1 - Ross Chastain
- #11 - Denny Hamlin
- #42 - John Hunter Nemechek
- #17 - Chris Buescher
Even after earning a sudden new lease on playoff life following the events of post-race tech inspection at Charlotte, where Alex Bowman's car being too light led to him being disqualified and Logano being put back above the cut line to advance to the next round, Logano did not show outright winning pace throughout the day compared to others, including Christopher Bell, who led 155 of 267 laps.
Given the choice between saving fuel to make it to the end of the final 69-lap run or pit for fresh tires and fuel to the finish midway through the run, crew chief Paul Wolfe elected to have Logano save fuel and put him in position to win. A position Logano capitalized on, maintaining his streak of making the Championship 4 every other year since the current playoff format was introduced in 2014. And since 2018, Logano has made the Championship 4 by winning the opening race of the Round of 8 four times.
"Man, we do some fuel mileage stuff, don't we? Holy cow," Logano told NBC Sports. "What an incredible turn of events the last week ... We're going to the Championship 4 again! I don't know what the deal is with the even-year thing, but maybe it's real. Thanks to the fans out here, thanks to Roush Yates engines for making great fuel mileage. Great calls by Paul, Nick Hensley our gas man making sure she's full, giving me the good info I need to save fuel and keep the lead that we needed to.
"Boy, we're going racing again. What an incredible situation. I'm so blessed."
Playoffs turned on their head
The door for Logano to completely upend the Championship 4 picture was opened by a massive turn of events on lap 89. After winning stage one, Tyler Reddick was trying to make his way back forward from midpack after mixed pit strategies under caution jumbled up the running order, and tried to force his way to the outside of both Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. on the exit of turn 4, seemingly without regard to those two going up the track to exit the corner.
Reddick and Elliott collided, triggering a grinding five=car crash that sent Reddick upside down after launching over the transition from the infield grass to the quad oval while also collecting Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric, and another playoff contender in Ryan Blaney. Reddick suffered terminal damage and finished 35th, while Blaney and Elliott wound up 32nd and 33rd after having to spend the rest of the day nursing badly wounded cars.
"You have to be aggressive on restarts ... Being myself on a mile and a half, being aggressive – by the time I realized I was in trouble, the 19 started sliding and the 9 was coming up and I was pretty much already on their outside at that point, with nowhere to really go," Reddick told NBC Sports. "I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding to be more conservative to avoid an incident – just not who I am.
"... We can still have a good day at Homestead and be in the mix in Martinsville. Ideally, yeah, it would have been nice to win today. It would be nice to win next week, and that's what we'll focus on. But thankfully we got 10 stage points in Stage 1, and it's not like we are absolutely out of it on points yet. We are going to have to be perfect here on out, probably."
More unexpected developments in the playoff battle came on pit road, as two of the pit crews who have made it into the Round of 8 ended up having disastrous days. During a mid-race cycle of green flag pit stops, Kyle Larson's crew in particular had an absolute nightmare of a stop in which the jack was dropped on the right side of the car as the rear tire changer was still tightening Larson's right rear.
Larson's crew went back to the right side to tighten the right rear, but in the process forgot to change the left rear tire, forcing crew chief Cliff Daniels to call Larson back to pit road, costing them a full lap. Larson was eventually able to get the free pass to get back on the lead lap and fought back from that gaffe -- as well as damage to the left front nose of his car from a piece of debris -- to finish 11th.
"I thought we would probably finish that stage in third or fourth, and then our pit stop was super messy," Larson told NBC Sports. "That was a bummer, but we were able to fight to stay one lap down and then fight to get in that lucky dog position and get back to the lead lap. Just wasn't quite great there the last two laps, but we made the most of it. It could've been a lot worse."
Denny Hamlin also had multiple poor pit stops, but he was able to use the same strategy Logano employed to finish eighth, one of four playoff drivers to finish in the top 10 along with Logano in first, Bell in second and William Byron in fourth.
With Logano now having clinched a spot in the Championship 4 in Phoenix, Bell (+42), Larson (+35), and Byron (+27) all hold sizable advantages over the cut line for the remaining three spots in the final round. Hamlin (-27), Reddick (-30), Blaney (-47) and Elliott (-53) all have deep points holes to try and climb out of over the remaining two races of the Round of 8.
Race results rundown
- Besides Logano, Suarez and Hamlin at the front, the other drivers on the same strategy were able to stretch their fuel mileage to the end to earn better finishes than they otherwise would have. John Hunter Nemechek used the strategy to earn his fourth top 10 of the year in ninth, while Corey LaJoie parlayed it into a 14th-place finish and his second top 15 in four starts with Rick Ware Racing. Michael McDowell and Cody Ware were also on the same strategy, finishing 20th and 21st.
- Harrison Burton enjoyed one of his better overall runs of the 2024 season, as he would crack the top 10 at one point before earning a 15th-place finish to give him his second straight top-20 finish. Burton had previously been on a streak of six straight finishes outside the top 20, including his elimination from the playoffs at the end of the Round of 16.
- Justin Haley made his presence felt at the front of the field midway through the race, finishing seventh in Stage 2 and then running as high up as the top five before settling for a 17th-place finish. Haley was actually the second best of the Spire Motorsports cars, as Zane Smith finished just ahead of him in 16th to continue his rookie year's second-half turnaround.
- The first caution of the day came out after a vicious accident in Turn 3, in which Austin Dillon was turned head-on into the outside wall by Daniel Hemric as the two cars were racing for the free pass spot. Dillon made his displeasure known with Hemric afterward, telling NBC Sports he was "flat out wrecked" by the driver of the No. 31. Hemric would go on to finish 19th.
- Compared to other races that he has run since coming out of retirement to race a part-time schedule for Legacy Motor Club, NASCAR Hall of Famer and seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was able to enjoy an uneventful and incident-free day on his way to finishing 28th. Johnson tied his season-best finish, which he had previously set in the Daytona 500 and at Dover in May.
Next Race
The race for a Championship 4 spot hits South Beach with the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC.