Joey Logano took a risk on fuel mileage to win the Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 20th, 2024. The victory ensures that the No. 22 NASCAR Ford Mustang Dark Horse will have a spot in the Championship 4, and it was no fluke that Logano ended up where he did.
A report from NASCAR.com analyzes the factors that ultimately sent Logano to Victory Lane at Vegas. It all started with NASCAR Ford Team Penske, which fields several race cars in the Cup Series, including the No. 22 Mustang of Logano and the No. 12 Mustang of Ryan Blaney, who is currently the only other Ford driver still in the Playoffs. Blaney crashed during practice, and team members from other Penske race cars in the Cup Series got to work putting Blaney’s backup car together for Sunday.
Unfortunately, Blaney was involved in a multicar wreck during Stage 2, forcing him to visit Pit Road multiple times to attempt to fix the damage. While Blaney was out of contention for the win, he was able to help push Logano’s race car to the win, potentially saving him some fuel on his way to Victory Lane as the No. 20 Toyota TRD Camry of Christopher Bell stalked him. Logano had pitted sooner than the leaders and was racing the fuel gauge as much as he was racing his competitors, but Blaney helped take the pressure off.
“I don’t think there’s a team out there that works better together than Team Penske,” Logano said. “That is just in our DNA all the way through. That started years and years and years ago. I can’t even take credit for being part of that. From when I got there (in 2013), the openness between team to team.”
Blaney said that he’s happy to help a teammate, even if they’re both vying for a title.
“We’re just a big team effort, right? We want to do well for Roger (Penske, team owner),” Blaney said. “We want to do well for everyone who works for us and all of our partners, and we all try to work hand in hand and do the best we can to help. You want to help yourself, but you also want to help the group, right? So, yeah, it’s nice that they were able to pull one out today. Hopefully, we can join them in a couple of weeks.”
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