Logano beat out Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick at Homestead-Miami to clinch his first championship.
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — With 12 laps to go in Nascar’s top series, Joey Logano passed his archrival, Martin Truex Jr., and then held on to win the 267-lap season finale and the series championship on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Logano, 28, beat out his fellow championship finalists — Truex, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, all former champions — for his first title.
The four contenders battled one another at the front of the field for much of the thrilling finale. Busch, who had gambled on fuel and tires, appeared to have the advantage as the final stretch approached. But on a restart after a caution period with 20 laps to go, he was not able to hold off Logano and Truex. He faded to fourth, behind Harvick.
Logano surged alongside Truex before passing him and holding on for the win. In 2016, Logano had a disappointing runner-up finish, and said that setback prepared him for this year’s clincher.
“I’ve worked my whole life to get here,” said Logano, who drove a Ford for Team Penske. “I knew my car was good on short runs, and that last 20 laps under green was just how I wanted the race to play out.”
The race, taking place under near-perfect weather conditions southwest of Miami, had a sense of déjà vu about it, as the so-called championship four was largely the same as it was last year. Busch, Truex and Kevin Harvick were back for another year as finalists Logano replaced his teammate Brad Keselowski from the 2017 lineup.
Despite the Nascar adage that “you need friends out on the racetrack” to help you do well, those four have excelled year after year despite being considered to be among the prickliest competitors in the sport.
After Logano bumped Truex during the final lap at Martinsville last month before surging ahead to win, Truex promised, “I know he won’t win the championship.” It was not the first run-in with a competitor for Logano; Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth have intentionally wrecked him before.
Logano said he expected an even higher level of intensity for the final. “It doesn’t matter how you are,” he said. “You find another gear here. A higher gear.”
Busch, the regular-season champion, was candid about his feelings toward certain drivers in the series. “Sometime you just don’t like a guy,” he said simply.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who often crossed paths with Busch during his career, said, “He drives hard, and he doesn’t care who gets in the way.”
One of Harvick’s team owners, Tony Stewart, a notoriously pugnacious driver who retired last year, said Harvick, the 2014 series champion, thrived in high-pressure situations.
“Kevin’s the guy who, if there’s five seconds to go, is the guy who you want to get the ball to. You want it in his hands,” Stewart said.
Busch and Harvick had each won a season-leading eight races this year to help them get into the Homestead finale. Truex, the 2017 champion, qualified with four victories and a big cache of points. Logano peaked in the nine races preceding the final event.
“We were the favorite. We executed down the stretch like nobody’s business,” Logano told reporters after Sunday’s race.
The battle among the car manufacturers was another case of déjà vu: It was the second year in a row that Toyota, with Truex and Busch, and Ford, with Logano and Harvick, squared off for the title. And for a second straight year, Chevrolet, which fields the most entries, was shut out.
Chevrolet’s motor sports director, Jim Campbell, said that development was “disappointing.” But, he noted, Chevrolet introduced a new car, the Camaro, to the series, and the teams struggled as they tried to sort out the new automobile. T
he results improved as the season went on, and the fan favorite Chase Elliott, a Chevrolet driver, won three of the last 15 races; he was not eliminated from the Championship 4 until the next-to-last race.
Harvick barely made the field, after his car was ruled illegal three races from the season’s end. His crew chief, Rodney Childers, was suspended for the remainder of the season, and the team lost a critical number of points and an automatic berth in the final. So Harvick had to race his way back in over the remaining races.
The season finale also marked a turning of the chapter for some in Nascar. Truex’s team went out of business, having lost its major sponsor. The seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson finished without a victory for the first time in 16 seasons, and his longtime crew chief, Chad Knaus, is moving to another team.
