Joey Logano wins at Homestead, backs up big talk to claim first NASCAR championship

The Big 3 dominated most of the 2018 NASCAR season, but in the end it was a driver who came alive late — both in the playoffs and the championship race — who proved better than all of them when it mattered most.

When asked about his car and whether it was fast enough to win the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Miami-Homestead Speedway, Joey Logano said that he thought “for 20 laps, we’ve got them covered.” Fortunately for him, the end of the NASCAR Cup Series season came down to just 15 laps with him racing against the Big 3 in the top four spots for the championship.

Logano famously declared himself the favorite prior to the race despite winning less races in 2018 than each of the other contenders. He backed up that boast by catching Martin Truex Jr. with 10 laps to go — the same driver he bumped out of the way to win at Martinsville and secure his spot at Homestead — and passing him cleanly. Neither Truex nor anyone else could run down Logano after that, and the 28-year-old Connecticut native claimed his first Cup Series championship and first for any Ford driver since Kurt Busch in 2004.

“I told you we weren’t, and we proved why we’re not,” Logano said in Victory Lane when asked if he was actually the underdog despite his pre-race talk. “This is the favorite, I told you that before the race started. I’m so proud of everybody able to rise to the occasion and execute under pressure like nobody’s business.”

The Championship 4 were in or around the lead all day, with only Kyle Larson looking like someone who might spoil the party among non-contenders. He won stage 2 but showed the hazards of running right out by the wall lap after lap when he cut down a right-side tire.

Yet it was an even later caution that helped set the stage for Logano’s triumph, even if it looked like it might play into Kyle Busch’s hands instead. The 18 team chose to keep their driver out on the track after nearly everyone else made green flag pit stops in the final stage, hoping a yellow flag would bunch things back up and make their gamble for track position worth it. That played out perfectly when Daniel Suarez got into an incident with less than 20 laps left, bringing everyone back down pit road.

Kyle Busch won the race off pit road and chose the outside line for the restart, but it was Truex on the inside who got to the lead. However, Logano’s No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford was clearly faster on the short run, and once he made the pass, there was no doubt that only catastrophe or a last-minute caution would keep him from the title.

For Truex, it was an especially bitter pill to swallow coming so close and failing to defend his championship since it was his final race with Furniture Row Racing. He’ll head to Joe Gibbs Racing for 2019 and will be expected to contend there as well, but he was emotional when asked after the race how he felt about seeing the storybook ending slip away.

“I’m not sure yet to be honest with you,” Truex said to NBC Sports. “I don’t know, I’m going to miss these guys. I wish we could have won it. We had it, we just couldn’t go for 15 laps, and I knew that last restart was going to be tough. We were able to get the lead, I just couldn’t do anything. We were just slow for 15 laps.”

Logano was fast during those same 15 laps, and that was ultimately all it took for him and his 22 team to win the championship. It was a performance that not a lot of NASCAR fans may have expected even a month ago, but it was a fitting one to end an entertaining Cup Series season.