Team Penske’s Joey Logano passed Ross Chastain with three laps remaining in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and drove to a .817-second victory.
As a result, Logano has punched his ticket to the Championship Four.
Logano led twice for 32 laps, including the final three circuits of the 1.5-mile track.
“We’re racing for a championship, let’s go!” Logano said following the race. “Oh, man, all you want to do is get to the Championship 4 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. Things are looking really good for us.”
Non-playoff drivers ruled the roost early on in the South Point 400, as polesitter Tyler Reddick took charge in his No. 8 Chevrolet during the opening 33 laps. As the lead drifted through the hands of Austin Cindric and then Daniel Suarez, it was Bubba Wallace who surged to the front in his No. 45 23XI Racing entry for the remainder of stage one.
Suarez regained his footing on the stage-two restart and overtook Wallace for the lead, while Suarez’s Trackhouse Racing teammate Chastain secured second. Behind them, a tight battle between Wallace and Logano raged, with the No. 22 Ford driver emerging to take third.
Wallace began to drift back in the pack and collided with Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson on lap 94.
Wallace immediately exited the vehicle and strode toward the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports entry, which had spun into the grass on the frontstretch. After a heated verbal and physical exchange with Larson, Wallace stormed off the track.
“He (Kyle Larson) knows. 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,” Wallace said. “Our McDonald’s Toyota Camry was super solid — just needed to find a little bit on the short run and get the balance where we needed it. It would have been like Kansas and now the car is junk.”
Meanwhile, Bell, who entered the day as one of the eight drivers still alive in the playoff hunt, visited the garage to allow his team to patch up the damage to his No. 20 Toyota, but both he and Larson were forced to call it a day.
“It’s disappointing because our performance is capable of racing for the championship, and it doesn’t appear that we’re going to get to. Just disappointing,” Bell said.
Playoff driver Denny Hamlin took the lead as the race resumed on lap 102, but another caution flew on the restart for an incident between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Chase Briscoe. Chastain and Suarez were back as the lead pair on the lap-107 restart, with Chastain maintaining the lead until lap 128 when Ryan Blaney passed him.
Blaney and Logano went 1-2 through the end of stage two, though the spotlight was devoted to the battle between the No. 24 of William Byron and the No. 11 of Hamlin as they fought for fifth. Hamlin eventually stole the position, helping him inch closer to the front.
With less than 100 laps to go, the final stage commenced with Logano leading Blaney to the green flag.
Kyle Busch and Reddick went back-and-forth for eighth, with Reddick securing the position with 80 laps to go. Reddick was on the move to the front, passing Cindric and Byron as he laid down a few fast laps around the 1.5-mile speedway.
A caution came with 73 laps to go when J.J. Yeley spun in turn four, instigating a flood of drivers to visit pit road. On the restart, Chastain, Aric Almirola and Hamlin filled the top three with Blaney and Busch in tow.
The race was caution-free until 40 laps to go when Blaney made contact with the wall, sustaining damage to the right side of his No. 12 Ford in the process. The restart took place with 35 laps to go, making way for Justin Haley to take the lead over Briscoe and Chastain. Another caution emerged with 26 laps to go as Suarez spun in turn four, dropping him out of the top five.
The final green flag waved with 17 laps to go and while Chastain slid comfortably into the lead, it was an all-out battle for the second between Logano and Briscoe. Busch made his way into the mix with three to go, overtaking Briscoe for third.
Logano passed Chastain on lap 265 and led the final three circuits, while Chastain narrowly held off Busch to finish second.
“For our Tootsie Chevy, that was all we had,” Chastain said. “He just got position on me in the frontstretch and it was really tight.”
Briscoe and Hamlin rounded out the top five.
The Round of 8 will continue on Sunday, Oct. 23, at Homestead-Miami Speedway.