Joey Logano Somehow Wins The NASCAR Cup Series Championship After Sucking All Season

Gotta get hot at the right time I guess. There's already been a lot of criticism over the NASCAR playoff system, which basically rewards drivers with a playoff spot for winning a race no matter how the rest of their season goes. The issue was especially highlighted after Harrison Burton won at Daytona and secured his spot in the playoffs, despite the fact that he was sitting 34th in the points at the time and basically had no shot of winning the championship. Burton taking a playoff spot meant guys like Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and Kyle Busch, all of whom were at least 15 spots ahead of Burton in the points standings, missed out on the playoffs because a driver scored a win at the right time. And the same can be said for Joey Logano, who just became the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion. The driver of the #22 for Team Penske had a Cinderella run in the playoffs, highlighted by a win today in the championship race at Phoenix, to take home his third Cup Series championship. But for most of the season, Logano wasn't even considered a championship contender. Through the first 26 races which make up the regular season, he had only 4 top 5 finishes and 8 top 10s. He also had 6 DNFs this season, and through the first 18 races of the season Logano was sitting at 14th in points and in serious risk of missing the playoffs. Then Logano managed to score a surprise victory at Nashville Superspeedway back in June after a wild finish that saw the #22 car stretch his fuel after a mediocre run to outlast his competition during a record 5 overtime periods. That strategy call vaulted Logano into the playoffs, where he seemingly flipped a switch and came out of the gate strong with a win in the first race in the round of 16 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. His second win of the season put Logano through to the round of 12 automatically. But after getting caught up in a crash at Talladega and finishing 33rd, he was at risk of missing the round of 8. In fact, he DID miss the round of 8 after the next race at the Charlotte Roval. But Alex Bowman failed postrace inspection and disqualified from the race, giving Logano the final spot in the next round of the playoffs. We should have known that he was destined to win it all at that point, with Logano seeming to get the breaks to fall his way. But he still had to make it to the championship race, and he punched his ticket to the final round with a win at Las Vegas in the opening race of the round of 8. Well the championship race at Phoenix ended up being a battle between Team Penske cars, with Logano and his teammate Ryan Blaney in the #12 car battling for the lead most of the day. In the closing laps, Blaney managed to erase a 3 second lead and run down his teammate, who was leading the race. But after catching him with just a handful of laps to go, Blaney was never able to make the pass that mattered, allowing Logano to cruise to victory and become one of just 10 drivers in NASCAR history to win at least three championships. https://twitter.com/NASCAR/status/1855760186360701040 There's no doubt that Logano's championship will spark plenty of offseason debate about the playoff format, which led to drivers like Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell who were dominant throughout the entire season left out of the championship hunt in the final race. In fact, Logano finished the season with the worst average finish EVER for a series champion at just 17th. But hey, that's the system that was in place this year, and Logano made it work - despite the fact that he sucked most of the season. Congratulations Joey - I guess. (Still not a Logano fan, sorry). https://twitter.com/NASCARonNBC/status/1855759271289569621