Defense didn’t win a championship for Joey Logano during Sunday’s NASCAR race at Kansas, but it did clinch the No. 22 team a spot in this years championship race at Phoenix.
The 2018 Cup Series title winner was able to hold off Kevin Harvick for the final 25 laps during the Hollywood Casino 400 saving him the spot.
Without a victory on Sunday, Logano would have sat about 8-10 points behind Chase Elliott for the final cutoff spot, but now, as he said during a postrace interview on MRN, he can sleep easy.
Logano will now go to Phoenix to fight for a second championship in three years, and it’s anyone’s guess who will join him for the battle.
Harvick is – rather obviously – in the best position to move on, as he still sits 41 points above the cutoff spot.
Not to mention the series’ next race will go down at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, October 25 – where Harvick has won three of the past six races at.
The other dominant cog in the series this season in Denny Hamlin is still 20 points ahead of the cutoff, but again, with Logano winning on Sunday that means these teams will need to pay more attention to stage points early on in the race.
Another chapter to the book is written next Sunday at Texas, but for now, Logano will sit back and see who he will need to beat to get title number two.
| 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Grid | |||
| With 2 races remaining in the Round of 8 | |||
| Position | Driver | Cutoff | |
| 1 | Joey Logano | x | |
| 2 | Kevin Harvick | +41 | |
| 3 | Denny Hamlin | +20 | |
| 4 | Brad Keselowski | +8 | |
| Playoff Cutoff | |||
| 5 | Chase Elliott | -8 | |
| 6 | Alex Bowman | -27 | |
| 7 | Martin Truex Jr. | -31 | |
| 8 | Kurt Busch | -73 | |