NASCAR: Joey Logano considered causing a wreck at Phoenix
By Asher Fair
Joey Logano considered causing a wreck late in the NASCAR Cup Series season finale at Phoenix Raceway in an attempt to save his championship bid.
Team Penske’s Joey Logano was positioned to win what would have been his second career NASCAR Cup Series championship on Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway before he was passed by Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott with just 43 laps to go in the season finale.
The 2018 champion had taken the lead away from Elliott by pitting and getting on new tires one lap sooner than the driver of the #9 Chevrolet.
But after both drivers had come into the pits, Elliott ran Logano down and passed him on lap 270 of this 312-lap race around the four-turn, 1.022-mile (1.645-kilometer) oval in Avondale, Arizona.
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The driver of the #22 Ford eventually ended up losing second place to teammate Brad Keselowski as well before the checkered flag flew for Elliott, who became the youngest champion since four-time champion Jeff Gordon won his first title in 1995.
But Logano, who won the race at Phoenix Raceway back in March before the first “offseason” of 2020, which was a 10-week hiatus that came about unexpectedly due to the coronavirus pandemic, admitted that he considered trying to change the outcome of the race by doing something other than simply running Elliott down.
As the laps wound down, Joey Logano considered causing a caution to save his 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship bid.
It was clear that he was losing ground to Elliott, and the race was a clean race. A caution flag was no guarantee. So causing a yellow would have given him the opportunity to pit for new tires and potentially come out ahead of the rest of the field for a late restart, or at the very least, bring him a lot closer to Elliott to challenge him on any ensuing restart.
Of course, he ultimately didn’t do it, but he had the opportunity to do so. Hear what he had to say about that thought crossing his mind.
ICYMI: @joeylogano said he did think about trying to bring out a caution in the final laps of the Championship Race Sunday@TheMikeBagley | @PPistone pic.twitter.com/Ot2oe73hBD
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) November 11, 2020
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The 36-race 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season is scheduled to begin on Sunday, February 14 with the 63rd annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, and it is scheduled to end on Sunday, November 7 with the second consecutive championship decider at Phoenix Raceway.