CONCORD, N.C. — The drama of the postseason doesn’t get more tense than Sunday’s Cup Series Playoffs Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Joey Logano crossed the finish line 20th on the final lap, when he was in a dead heat with Ross Chastain at the cutline for the final transfer spot into the Round of 8. As the three-time series champion completed the frontstretch chicane, two cars were spun backward just before the checkered flag — Denny Hamlin’s and Chastain’s.
Logano beat Chastain by 0.167 seconds as the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet drove backward across the line.
When the smoke settled, Logano grasped the final semifinal spot by four points.
“If you’re one of those people that say playoff points don’t matter, stage wins don’t matter, regular-season races don’t matter — go watch that,” Logano said.
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For 109 grueling laps around the 17-turn road course/oval hybrid, Logano and Chastain were nearly inseparable at the cutline.
One lap, Logano would be ahead. Then the next, Chastain would slide into the eighth spot. And with heavy tire falloff heightening the importance of strategy and pit-road execution, Sunday shaped up as a three-hour game of chess between the No. 1 and No. 22 teams around the 2.28-mile circuit.
The No. 22 crew slipped up first with a slow change on the right-front tire in the final stage as Chastain drove by their pit stall.
But the race flipped back in Logano’s favor after a costly speeding penalty by Chastain on the final stop with 20 to go, which the 2022 Championship 4 finalist ultimately said was the reason he won’t race for the Bill France Cup for the remainder of the season.
“I single-handedly took a car out of the Round of 8 and a chance to go to the round of four,” Chastain lamented. “In two months, we’ve elevated ourselves from, I say, an 18th-place car to an eighth-place car. Today, we were good enough to run top five, and I took us out of that. It’s all on me.”
As the laps wound down, No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe made the gutsy decision to pit Logano with 10 to go in hopes of being able to either force Chastain and the No. 1 team to cover or have the tire advantage to make up the spots to elevate above Chastain on the cutline.
Chastain ran the final 20 laps without pitting, and Logano was forced to try to make up as ground as possible. But with Logano not having the outright speed, he needed Chastain to lose spots.
AJ Allmendinger, Tyler Reddick got by. Then, Bubba Wallace and Chase Briscoe. Chastain lost the spots, and the pressure was on to hold serve, but he was unsuccessful. Ford drivers Josh Berry and Todd Gilliland slipped past the No. 1 Chevy with Hamlin serving as the final point to get Logano through.
Hamlin passed Chastain on the final lap in Turn 7, and Chastain attempted a last-ditch effort in the frontstretch chicane that ultimately sent both the No. 1 and No. 11 spinning before the checkered flag — cementing another gutsy call for Wolfe as a success.
“Unfortunately, we just didn’t have the speed, and it just makes it hard to call the strategy at times,” Wolfe told NASCAR.com. “They’re running numbers based off of an average lap-time curve, right? And at one point, I’m just, like, ‘guy, we got to figure this off of our lap times, what we’re capable of doing because we have all the programs that are running and telling you, is it faster to stop two or three times?’ Finally there at the end, once Ross got to us there before that stop, I was like, ‘listen, just what’s our numbers telling us for us?’ And it told us we were faster to stop again. I said, ‘well, it doesn’t matter what the 1 does, we’re going to stick to our strategy,’ and obviously it paid off, and did what we expected.”
Hamlin, who advanced to the Round of 8 by 33 points, was collateral damage and finished 23rd after straightening out his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. The 44-year-old veteran said he was unaware of what the points scenario was between Chastain and Logano on the final lap.
“Honestly, I was just running. I saw the 1 was fading. I didn’t see the 22. I assumed the 22 was way ahead of us. So honestly, I was driving blind. I had no idea the points situation,” Hamlin said. “I was just trying not to wreck the 1. He was fading, but I didn’t want to get into him or anything like that. I didn’t want any parts of it. No one told me anything, so I just had absolutely no idea.”
“They were innocent bystanders in it,” Chastain said of spinning Hamlin. “And whether he knew or not, I don’t know. I would hate to be in that position. The past speaks for itself, and I’m more aware of my surroundings. I am sorry to them, sorry to Denny, I’m sorry to JGR and his whole team. They were definitely innocent bystanders.”
Chastain’s crew chief Phil Surgen called the final lap ‘suspenseful.’ He could only helplessly watch the No. 1 car try to survive and advance on track.
However, he said he’s overall proud of the fight from his team with a handful of low points throughout the 2025 season.
“We still don’t feel good about where our speed’s at and how competitive we are,” Surgen told NASCAR.com. “But through the lull in the summer that we had with some wrecks and some lackluster performance, everybody dug in deep and started the playoffs. We started qualifying better. We started finishing better, putting races together. The pit crew was rolling, and just all that energy that came together in the playoffs was really great. Hopefully, we can build on that more for the end of the year and for next year.”
Another year, another bid into the Round of 8 as Logano makes the semifinal round for the 10th time in the playoff era.
The trust between Logano and Wolfe only continues to grow, and they’ll begin the Round of 8 at the same track that set them up for a championship last season — Las Vegas Motor Speedway next Sunday (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
“In my opinion, there’s no one better than Paul at calling a race,” Logano said. “He’s really, really good at it, so I trust that he makes the right calls.
“What you did in the past never guarantees success in the future. But to be able to still be around — that’s all you’ve got to do in these playoffs. Just stay alive. It’s been a grind so far and we’ll grind it out to the very end.”
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