Joey Logano clinches Final Four spot with Vegas win amid Wallace/Larson crash

Joey Logano has reason to celebrate as he is the first driver to lock a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Round. On the other hand, Bubba Wallace will likely prefer to have what happened in Vegas stay there.

Logano passed Ross Chastain for the lead with three laps remaining and held on to score his third win of 2022 and third at Las Vegas Motor Speedway; he also reaches the thirty-win mark in his Cup career. Interestingly, he has made the Championship Round every other year since the introduction of the system in 2014, with 2018 and 2020 also seeing him advance by winning the first race in the Round of 8.

“All you want to do is get to the Championship Four when the season starts and race for a championship, and we’ve got the team to do it. I don’t see why we can’t win at this point,” said Logano. “Things are looking really good for us. […]

“Just a lot of adversity fought through the last fifty laps or so. I thought we were going to win and then we kind of fell out and then had the tires, and racing Ross was fun. He was doing a good job air-blocking me, and just trying to be patient, and eventually, I was like, ‘I’ve got to go here.'”

While Logano has plenty of reason to be upbeat, however, fan discourse mainly surrounded Wallace. On lap 94, after leading much of and winning Stage #1, he was squeezed into the wall by Kyle Larson on the frontstretch, prompting him to retaliate by hooking Larson. As the two were shot at the outside wall, Wallace’s Toyota ally Christopher Bell was also caught in the crossfire as he got clipped and spun.

After exiting their cars, Wallace pushed Larson multiple times though the latter did not attempt to hit back before they were separated.

“When you get shoved in the fence, deliberately like [Larson] did, trying to force me to lift, the steering was gone, and he just so happened to be there,” stated Wallace. “I hate it for our team. We had a super-fast car, not on short run speed, we were kind of falling back there and Larson wanted to make it a three-wide dive bomb. He never cleared me. I don’t lift. I know I’m kind of new to running up front, but I don’t lift. I wasn’t even in a spot to lift, he never lifted either and now we are junk. Piss poor move on his execution.

“He knows what he did was wrong. He wanted to question what I was doing, and he never cleared me. I just hate it for our team.”

The wreck immediately puts Bell at a disadvantage as he sinks to the bottom of the playoff standings. He described it as “disappointing because our performance is capable of racing for the championship,” but did not explicitly condemn Wallace for the move as he believed NASCAR will “follow protocol of whatever they’ve done in the past.”

“The good thing is I feel better about winning one of those two races than I did winning the Roval,” he continued. “We’ve just had really, really strong Camrys, really all year long. We will see if we can go pull another rabbit out of the hat.”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	5	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	267	Running
2	11	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	267	Running
3	18	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
4	16	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	267	Running
5	31	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
6	1	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
7	27	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
8	22	43	Erik Jones	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
9	21	16	A.J. Allmendinger*	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
10	10	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
11	17	48	Noah Gragson*	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
12	13	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	267	Running
13	3	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
14	28	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
15	12	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	267	Running
16	6	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	267	Running
17	25	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	267	Running
18	23	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	267	Running
19	15	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	267	Running
20	24	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	267	Running
21	20	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
22	19	23	Ty Gibbs*	23XI Racing	Toyota	267	Running
23	29	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
24	30	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
25	35	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	267	Running
26	8	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	266	Running
27	34	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	264	Running
28	4	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	260	Running
29	2	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	259	Running
30	36	78	B.J. McLeod*	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	256	Running
31	26	15	J.J. Yeley*	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	253	Running
32	32	77	Landon Cassill*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	246	Accident
33	33	42	Ty Dillon	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	237	Suspension
34	7	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	94	DVP
35	14	5	Kyle Larson^	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	94	Accident
36	9	45	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	94	Accident

Bold – Currently in playoffs
^ – Currently in owner playoffs
Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points