• Slug: Sports-Championship Phoenix Raceway, 1,100 words.
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By Cooper Burns
Cronkite News

AVONDALE – For the final 25 laps Sunday, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney put on a show.

That they are teammates only added to the excitement for the sellout crowd at Phoenix Raceway before Logano held on and secured the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship.

“I love the playoffs. I love it, man. What a race,” Logano said. “What a Team Penske battle there at the end.”

It was an incredible turn of events considering just weeks ago, Logano found himself eliminated from the playoffs following the race at Charlotte.

Hours later, he was back in the mix after Alex Bowman was disqualified after his Chevrolet failed inspection.

This vaulted Logano through the playoffs and into the championship four. In the end, he beat out fellow championship contenders Blaney, Tyler Reddick and William Byron to capture his third NASCAR Cup Series championship and his second in three years.

“Man, three (championships), that’s really special to get that,” Logano said. “What a team. To fight through today, we went through a little bit of adversity throughout the race.”

Despite coming in as an underdog, Logano proved his detractors wrong from the get go.

Saturday afternoon saw Logano qualify in the second position, besting the other three championship competitors.

Qualifying up front proved to be a huge benefit for the No. 22 team.

Logano was up front for much of the race, leading 107 laps (33% of the race) but it was wasn’t all positive for Logano and his team.

During the middle portion of the race, Christopher Bell, who wasn’t in contention for the championship, took the lead. After falling back, Logano began to struggle behind the wheel.

“We led a lot of laps in the first stage but we got ourselves back there a little further than I wanted to,” he said.

As the race continued to play out, things were looking more and more bleak for Logano.

He had lost control of the championship four to Blaney and was falling deeply in the field, appearing frustrated with his fellow competitors.

But he and his team showed up when it mattered most.

During a restart with 55 laps to go in the race, Logano made a daring move, putting Byron and Bell three wide in an attempt to take the lead.

His risk paid off, as he moved in front and pulled away from the rest of the field.

Blaney on the other hand was not as lucky as he lost spots to Byron and Larson on the last restart.

“The restart didn’t play out for us,” Blaney said. “I feel like if I came out behind Joey and didn’t have two cars in between us that I had to pass, I would have been able to have a better shot. But just the restart didn’t work out, and that’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

Thirty laps later, Blaney was finally able to get the spots back that he lost and had his eyes set on Logano.

“I had to work really hard to get by the 5 (Larson) and the 24 (Byron),” Blaney said. “Joey was pretty far away, and I was working really hard to try to get to Joey. I was kind of nervous that if I ended up getting close to him, a lot of my stuff would be burned off of it, and it kind of was.”

This season Logano had an average finish of 17th place, the lowest average finishing spot ever for a Cup Series champion.

After the race, Logano said that he may not be the best driver in the field but when it matters most, his team shows up.

“I’ve got the best team,” Logano said. “I don’t know if I’m the best driver, but I’ve got the best team, and together, we’re very well-rounded and can show up when it matters the most. We’ve got a mentally tough team that can make things happen when it matters.”

Even after fighting tooth and nail with a teammate, Logano had nice words for Blaney.

“Ryan is a tremendous race car driver,” Logano said. “He is so fast. He pushes me a lot, more than any other teammate I’ve ever had, so to be able to race him till the end was fun.”

Logano was not the only driver to walk away with hardware this weekend.

Friday and Saturday night saw two first-time champions.

On Friday night, the NASCAR Craftsman Trucks Series had their championship race and ThorSport Racing driver Ty Majeski captured his first career championship in dominant fashion.

Majeski led 132 of the 150 laps en route to the title, and his only close championship competitor was 22-year-old Corey Heim.

Heim was tagged with a restart violation penalty that allowed Majeski to pull away even farther.

“We had a great truck on the short and long run tonight after the first stage,”Majeski said. “Throughout the race I felt like no matter what happened we had a truck capable of fending off any type of challenger.”

Saturday night saw a breakthrough in the NASCAR Xfinity Series

Justin Allgaier, 38, won the Xfinity Series title in his seventh attempt, while, coincidentally, driving the No. 7 car for Junior Motorsports, a car owned by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr.

It was a rollercoaster of a weekend for Allgaier and his team.

In practice Friday, Allgaier was in a wreck when a fellow competitor blew an engine and caused him and several others to spin in the oil. The team worked late into the night to prepare a backup car that would be ready to race Saturday evening.

Going to a backup car meant that he had to start in last place.

“If it could go wrong this weekend, it went wrong but the team just never gave up,” Allgaier said.

Allgaier climbed his way up to the top five but disaster struck again.

Just like Friday night, a championship driver was struck by a restart violation, and this time it was Allgaier.

To make matters worse, Allgaier was caught speeding on pit road while serving his penalty, meaning he had to come down pit road again.

At this point, Allgaier was a lap behind the leaders but finally caught a break late in the race.

Anthony Alfredo wrecked in turn two which allowed Allgaier to get back on the same lap as the leaders.

“It was like Christmas in November,” Allgaier said.

Just laps after getting back into the race, Allagier passed fellow championship competitor Cole Custer and won the title.

“I just want my kids to look back and just realize that we never quit, even when moments don’t look like they are going our way, and that’s what this weekend was,” Allgaier said.

NASCAR races back into Phoenix March 7-9 for the Shiners Children’s 500.

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