Joey Logano has three championships in the NASCAR Cup Series but none in the Chase system that has returned this season.<\/p>\n
The Team Penske driver is embracing the challenge of proving he can win a title in the format that puts a greater emphasis on banking consistently strong finishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I have a little chip on my shoulder? That\u2019s a clear yes,\u201d Logano said with a chuckle after his victory Saturday at Richmond Raceway. \u201cSo much so that our team slogan is \u20184 the haters.\u2019 That\u2019s where we\u2019re at. That\u2019s good extra motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n
With an impressive surge from 20th to ninth in the standings over the past six races, Logano has flipped the narrative on the elimination playoffs that were in place for 12 years.<\/p>\n
From 2014-25, the waning races of NASCAR\u2019s regular season typically were a scramble to make the championship field as a win earned a berth.<\/p>\n
But that safety valve has disappeared in the Chase, which will rely entirely on points to set the 16-driver field.<\/p>\n
The top 16 in the provisional Chase have been unchanged for the past four races, and the grid for the 10-race title run likely will remain the same at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend.<\/p>\n
Shane van Gisbergen holds the 16th and final spot by 50 points over Ryan Preece, who dropped 21 points further below the Chase cutline with a 17th-place finish at Richmond.<\/p>\n
The next three drivers ranked outside the Chase \u2014 Ross Chastain (12th at Richmond), Brad Keselowski (26th) and Erik Jones (27th) \u2014 also lost ground, diluting the potential drama of a surprise qualifier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of guys that feel the pressure of making the Chase is probably less,\u201d said Christopher Bell, who is among seven drivers who have clinched Chase spots. \u201cIn years past, everybody on the outside still had an opportunity to get in, and now it\u2019s kind of dwindled to a couple guys fighting for the spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been more intrigue toward the top half of the standings \u2014 particularly the progress of the Team Penske trio.<\/p>\n
As Logano continued his push up the points ladder, teammate Ryan Blaney moved past Ty Gibbs into second in the standings at Richmond. Austin Cindric, Penske\u2019s third driver, shored up his title eligibility with a career-best third on a short track to move up a spot to 15th in the points.<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin has a 115-point lead on Blaney and likely will clinch the Chase\u2019s top seed Sunday at New Hampshire, which will be followed by the Aug. 29 regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n
The standings then will be reset for the Chase, which begins Sept. 6 at Darlington Raceway with the championship leader ahead by 25 points. Second will start 10 points ahead of third, and the remaining 14 spots will be separated by five-point increments.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting to second is top of mind because every point is going to matter,\u201d Blaney said.<\/p>\n
There also is an emphasis on finishing the regular season in the top half of the points standings.<\/p>\n
Racing Insights, a NASCAR analytics firm, ran more than 25,000 computer simulations of Chase outcomes, and the champion started in the top six 85% of the time.<\/p>\n
Logano, who made the Chase only once while racing under the system in his first five Cup seasons from 2009-13, is 36 points from sixth-ranked Chase Elliott.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to switch our goals from making the Chase to winning the championship,\u201d said Logano, whose No. 22 Ford was ranked 17th before winning two of the past four races. \u201cIt\u2019s quite the turnaround. I look at the last month and a half, we\u2019ve been capable of winning all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logano could be among several more drivers who lock into the championship Sunday with a solid result at New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
Crew chief Paul Wolfe credited Logano with buoying morale when the team notched only two top-five finishes in the first half of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of everyone sticking together,\u201d Logano said. \u201cThere are times you see teams break, and it doesn\u2019t take much longer running the way we were until something probably was going to break. We\u2019ve been able to make quite the recovery to have a legit shot at the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larson double duty<\/p>\n
After finishing sixth at Richmond, Kyle Larson immediately flew to Iowa and scored his fourth victory in the Knoxville Nationals, a prestigious sprint car event. Larson qualified on the pole position last week by winning a preliminary race at the renowned dirt track in Knoxville, Iowa.<\/p>\n
He had expected to miss Saturday\u2019s main event because of the schedule conflict with Richmond, but a rain delay at Knoxville Raceway allowed the two-time Cup Series champion to arrive in time to lead all 50 laps. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely surreal just to talk about the day and the range of emotions,\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n
___ <\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full auto racing coverage here <\/p>\n
Nate Ryan, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joey Logano has three championships in the NASCAR Cup Series but none in the Chase system that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-862478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}