NASCAR Cup Series: Joey Logano wins 2018 championship
By Asher Fair
With his victory in the 2018 Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Joey Logano clinched his first career NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Team Penske’s Joey Logano, the only 2018 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 driver who entered the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway not considered a member of the “Big Three”, proved the critics wrong by securing his first career Cup Series championship.
Logano won the Championship 4 race, the Ford EcoBoost 400, at the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Homestead-Miami Speedway oval in Homestead, Florida in his #22 Ford ahead of the “Big Three”, who all also finished in the top four.
Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., the defending Cup Series champion, finished the race in second place in his #78 Toyota. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, the 2014 champion, and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch, the 2015 champion, rounded out the top four by finishing in third and fourth in their #4 Ford and #18 Toyota, respectively.
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Because the Championship 4 drivers all finished this race in the top four, which had never previously happened since the Championship 4 began in the 2014 season, they finished the season in the championship standings exactly where they finished the race.
Logano, who was considered by many fans to be the underdog heading into the season finale as the only non-“Big Three” driver in the Championship 4, believed that he was the favorite after becoming the first driver to secure a berth in the Championship 4 with his victory in the opening round of 8 race at Martinsville Speedway. This was the case despite the fact that this victory was only his second victory of the season. His first victory of 2018 came back in late April nearly six months earlier when he won the race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Meanwhile, Harvick and Busch entered the round of 8 with seven victories each and Truex Jr. entered with four. Harvick and Busch won the remaining two round of 8 races at Texas Motor Speedway and ISM Raceway, respectively, to get to eight victories each heading into the Championship 4 race.
While the “Big Three” entered the season finale with a combined 20 victories through the season’s first 35 races, Logano entered with only two, a total that was half the size of the win total of the least victorious “Big Three” member (Truex Jr.) leading into the Championship 4.
But win number three of the season was enough to propel the 28-year-old Middletown, Connecticut native to his first career Cup Series championship, leaving all three members of the “Big Three” just shy of becoming two-time champions.
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The Daytona 500 is set to kick off the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season. This race is scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 17, 2019, and it is set to be broadcast live on FOX from Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.