Joey Logano's Title-Worthy Smarts on Display in Savvy Watkins Glen Win
Joey Logano won the Cheez-It 355 with a last-lap pass. It wasn’t particularly heroic or even memorable given that the car his Ford passed was out of gas, but it was impressive in that it marked a triumph of a team that maintained a cool, collective head in a stressful environment.
The Chase for the Sprint Cup, which commences after the regular season’s four remaining races, includes no races on road courses, but it will reward a team that knows what it’s doing.
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“We definitely felt we executed well at Daytona [the 500] to get that first win,” winning crew chief Todd Gordon said. “I think, as an organization, we’ve executed well.
"We’ve worn a lot of bridesmaids' dresses here in the last month with both Joey and [teammate] Brad [Keselowski] finishing second at several places. [It’s] good to get back to Victory Lane and build the momentum going forward into the Chase because we’ve only got a few races left.
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Logano won for the second time this year. The Chase will be contested in neither Daytona Beach, Fla., nor Watkins Glen, N.Y., the sites of those victories. Nevertheless, the braintrust of Logano and Gordon demonstrated again that it is title-worthy.
“There really wasn’t any discussion,” Logano told NBC Sports in victory lane. “I just do what [Gordon] tells me to do. That’s why he gets paid the big bucks. That’s why I drive the car. We know our roles, and that’s what I talk about all the time is I don’t try to crew-chief this thing because I know I’ve got someone smarter than me on the box.
“I just drive the race car and do what he tells me to do. He gives me the piece [car] I need to do my job, and everyone does a great job on pit road.”
It sounds easier than it is. The driver is occupied. That doesn’t prevent lots of them from questioning their crew chiefs’ authority.
Logano, the one-time boy wonder who once had a reputation for wondrous talent and glaring immaturity, is now, at age 25, a veteran of 241 Sprint Cup races and a winner of 10. He became the first driver to sweep a weekend at Watkins Glen International, having won the Zippo 200, an Infinity Series event, on Saturday.
He is fully formed. He is ready to contend. He contended last year. The Chase is familiar.
Strategy, the big-picture word that denotes thinking and planning, is often misused. What determined the outcome of Sunday’s 22nd Sprint Cup race of the season, and what will likely determine the championship, is tactics, which involves movement and action.
Strategy is discussed in advance. Tactics is spur of the moment. Tactics is getting the job done.
The Chase format is a winnowing out process of stages in which a field of 16 is narrowed gradually, over 10 races, to four for the final event. It affords no room for tactical error. Luck also plays a role.
As the laps wound down at the Glen, Gordon was confident in his tactics. In radio communication, he repeatedly stressed to Logano that those in front of him didn’t have enough fuel to make it. He was right by a span of the final two turns at the 2.45-mile course, which has eight.
| Driver | Avg. Finish | Wins | Poles | Earnings | Points |
| Harvick | 8.0 | 2 | 1 | $5,925,672 | 823 |
| Logano | 9.5 | 2 | 4 | $5,275,106 | 781 |
Kevin Harvick followed a plan, too. It just didn’t work. He managed to make it to the finish line but lost the race to Logano and the runner-up spot to Kyle Busch.
Pressure from Logano foiled Harvick’s hopes to repeat the Watkins Glen victory he achieved in 2006.
“I think we had enough speed to push the 4 [Harvick] into getting off their fuel strategy,” Gordon said afterwards.
“I thought I’d done a pretty good job of saving fuel under the caution [flag],” Harvick said to NBC Sports. “Really, I was just running as fast as I needed to, to protect the lead there as I was in front of the [No.] 20 [Matt Kenseth], and once the 22 [Logano] got there, I had to pick up the pace a little bit.
"But, all in all, our team did a great job and we were in position to have a win. Two corners away. But that’s just how the middle of the season has gone. We’ve had really fast cars, but the circumstances have gotten the best of us, so hopefully, we’re saving that up for the last 10 weeks [the Chase].
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Harvick likely would have made it had the final 30 laps not been run at full speed. He and crew chief Rodney Childers made their choice. Logano and Gordon made theirs. Logano’s Ford led only the final lap. Harvick’s Chevrolet led a race-high 29. The single lap Logano led was worth $74,048 ($263,723 to $189,675) and four Sprint Cup points (47 to 43) more.
Harvick and Logano have each won twice and rank first and second in the points. Busch and and six-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who each have four victories, will join them in the Chase, where regular-season points will mean nothing.
Eleven drivers have won races. If no one else does so in the remaining four regular-season events, five winless drivers will make the Chase, as well. Harvick won it last year. Former champions Kenseth and Kurt Busch will be there, and Jeff Gordon, who has won four titles but no races this year to date, is in position.
Logano called it “the coolest win of my life” on TV.
“We [he and Gordon] were joking during that red flag [slightly past the midway point],” Logano said later. “I get confused because I don’t really know, and I’m just driving the car around in circles and he’s calling the race. I asked, hey, do you want to tell me the game plan or just want me to drive and I’ll figure it out later on, and he gave me the ‘yeah.’
“That means everything without saying anything. I know that. The cool thing about the chemistry that Todd and I have…is we can communicate without even saying anything.”
The two men know their respective places, and that’s going to be important come the fall.
All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.
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