A slow pit stop was a blessing in disguise for Joey Logano and Team Penske at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Logano won Sunday’s race with fresh tires helping him chase down Ross Chastain over the final 16 laps. The winning pass came with three laps to go.

The fresh tires came as a result of Logano being buried in the field due to a slow pit stop earlier in the day, making it an easy task for crew chief Paul Wolfe. With a caution on lap 240, Logano pitted in ninth place and led the others to pit road as well. He restarted 13th with 22 laps to go.

The race quickly returned under yellow before the field completed a lap due to Landon Cassil’s spin. The last restart was with 16 laps to go.

Logano finished fourth with 14 to go. After a lap he became third.

With nine to go, Logan, using the high lane, cut Chastain’s lead to less than a second. Logano was standing on his bumper with six laps to go and looking for a way past. With three to go, Logano got under Chastain, allowed him to enter Turn 3 and pulled away.

The win locks Logan into the Championship 4 and has a chance to claim his second title. Logan will fight for the championship for the fifth time in his career.

“We’re fighting for the championship, let’s go!” Logano said after his fourth win of the season. “Man what a great car. All the Penske cars were fast. They were all very fast today. Oh man, all you want to do is get to the Championship 4 when the season starts and fight for the championship and we have the team to do that. I don’t understand why we can’t win at the moment.

“Everything looks very good for us. [We had an] awesome Pennzoil Mustang… and man, there was a lot of adversity over the last 50 laps. I thought we were going to win and then we kind of fell out and then it was the tires and it was fun racing with Ross. He was doing a good job of shutting off my air and just trying to be patient and eventually I thought I had to go here. It’s just great to win again here in Vegas and it means so much to get to the championship.”

Chastain finished second. He led the race with 68 laps to go.

Kyle Busch finished third, Chase Briscoe fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth.

Busch recovered from a spin on lap 78 and the left front wheel came off his Toyota under the caution on lap 228. Briscoe bounced back from struggling earlier in the day and falling a lap down.

Tyler Reddick, who started from the pole and led 32 laps, finished sixth, with Martin Truex Jr. seventh and Eric Jones eighth. AJ Allmendinger finished ninth and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10.

Bubba Wallace finished last after winning the first stage. Wallace took part in a accident followed by a physical fight with Kyle Larson.

Ryan Blaney finished 28th after winning stage two. Blaney was running second on lap 228 when he spun off and went up the track, hitting the outside wall before flying out of Turn 2 and hitting the inside wall. The #12 team made repairs to keep Blaney on the track and finish the race.

There were eight cautions and 18 lead changes among 11 drivers on Sunday afternoon.

RESULTS

https://racer.com/2022/10/16/logano-avoids-drama-and-rockets-to-vegas-win-entering-championship-4/

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