It’s been a year and a half since I attended my first NASCAR race. I told myself I would follow up this experience by bringing my son to a race at Phoenix Raceway, but it seems I missed this past weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway. Here’s what happened.
Joey Logano and Team Penske won the race as well as the NASCAR Cup Series Championship— Logano’s third. That puts him in rarefied company, as he has tied the likes of Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip, among others.
Driving the number 22 Ford, Logano started at the number 2 position and managed to lead for 107 laps, though the leader for most of the race was Christopher Bell at 143 laps, who finished in 5th. Second place was teammate Ryan Blaney, who lost by only 0.330 seconds.
There were other things going on at Phoenix Raceway. Martin Truex Jr. raced his final race as a full-timer, finishing in 17th place. Fans of the 2017 Cup Series champion should not shed a tear, however, as he will be racing in 2025 as a part-timer.
Also retiring was FedEx, but not from NASCAR—just a team; in this case, Joe Gibbs Racing. The shipping company has been a sponsor for the number 11 Toyota Camry XSE driven by Denny Hamlin for almost two decades. “Just can’t thank [FedEx] enough for 19 years. It’s been such a great relationship,” said Hamlin. “If you said at the very beginning, ‘Would you take 19 years in a row with the presence they’ve had?’ Absolutely. They’ve been part of my racing career, the whole thing in Cup, and so really happy to be able to represent them and all their employees.”
More retirement news came from Stewart-Haas Racing. Fielding four cars in Phoenix, the 16-year veteran team competed in its final race in Phoenix. Three of the four racers have already finalized their plans for 2025, with Ryan Preece being the only one whose future is not definite (rumor is he may join forces with RFK Racing).
Arguably the most exciting moment was the pace car sliding into the barrels of the inside wall during the second stage restart. It appears that a spur-of-the-moment turn into the pit road cut off the lead racer, resulting in the mishap.
But don’t worry—it was a Camry.
The next NASCAR event at Phoenix Raceway will be the NASCAR Racing Experience on December 7, 2024, where you can drive a real NASCAR race car by yourself!