{"id":22888,"date":"2018-11-09T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T18:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=22888"},"modified":"2018-11-10T14:03:17","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T20:03:17","slug":"look-for-drama-in-the-desert-with-three-playoff-spots-up-for-grabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/09\/look-for-drama-in-the-desert-with-three-playoff-spots-up-for-grabs\/","title":{"rendered":"Look for drama in the desert with three Playoff spots up for grabs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2013 You can\u2019t blame Joey Logano<\/strong> for considering himself a favorite to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> championship.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Joey Logano (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

He\u2019s the only driver entering Sunday\u2019s Can-Am 500 at the reconfigured ISM Raceway with no stress when it comes to qualifying for the Nov. 18 Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.<\/p>\n

Logano won the Round of 8 opener at Martinsville Speedway to earn an automatic berth in the title contest. And with the benefits of Kevin Harvick\u2019s victory last Sunday at Texas vacated because of a rear spoiler violation, Logano currently stands alone as a guaranteed finalist.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, it\u2019s funny,\u201d Logano said on Thursday night at the Penske Museum in Scottsdale during the announcement of sponsor MoneyLion as a new partner for Team Penske. \u201cI was talking with (crew chief) Todd (Gordon) on the way out here, and I told him, \u2018When the Playoffs started, I kind of felt like we were an underdog of making it, and honestly, the last six or seven weeks we\u2019ve led a lot more laps, we\u2019ve won a lot of stages, won a race, was fast at Kansas, was fast at Texas\u2014you know what, I think we\u2019re the favorite to win now.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think it\u2019s so crazy to think that it can change that quick, but we are the one team that has been able to say we\u2019re locked in the last couple of weeks. I can promise you, I haven\u2019t watched the Phoenix tape when I flew out here. I was focused on one race.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other seven drivers still in the mix for the title will spend Sunday in the pressure cooker when the green flag flies in the Sonoran Desert (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Mobil 1 Ford. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Harvick, Kyle Busch and reigning series champion Martin Truex Jr.\u2014NASCAR\u2019s so-called Big Three\u2014collectively have won 19 of the 34 races this season, but all three are still fighting for spots in the Championship 4.<\/p>\n

With two drivers guaranteed to advance on points, Busch is in the best position. The 2015 series champion has a 28-point lead over his brother, Kurt Busch, the fifth-place driver. Kyle Busch can lock up a spot in the Championship 4 by scoring 31 points on Sunday, no matter who wins the race. That\u2019s good news for a driver who has accumulated 47, 41 and 52 points in the three Phoenix events since the debut of stage racing in 2017.<\/p>\n

A total of 34 points will get Truex into the final four, no matter what else happens. Though Truex has never won at ISM Raceway, he finished third in last year\u2019s Playoff race and fifth in the spring after winning the pole. Avoiding disaster and picking up stage points will be Truex\u2019s primary concerns on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Harvick\u2019s situation got considerably more perilous with the 40-point penalty he incurred for the infraction at Texas. The 2014 champion enters the Phoenix weekend with a three-point advantage over Kurt Busch, his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate. Nor will Harvick have the familiar voice of crew chief Rodney Childers in his ear\u2014both Childers and car chief Bob \u201cCheddar\u201d Smith are suspended for the final two races of the season.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Harvick has an unmatched record at Phoenix. Seven of his nine victories at the one-mile track have come in the last 12 races, a run that includes a win this past spring.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 Haas Automation\/Monster Energy Ford, walks to his car during qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 13, 2018 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Aric Almirola and Clint Bowyer, seventh and eighth in the Playoff standings, respectively, have only one path to the Championship 4\u2014victory at ISM Raceway on Sunday. But Kurt Busch and sixth-place place Chase Elliott both can qualify on points if circumstances play out in their favor.<\/p>\n

If Kurt Busch beats Harvick by three positions, for example, and if Bowyer, Almirola or Elliott doesn\u2019t win the race, Busch would make the final four.<\/p>\n

And if one of the drivers in positions five through eight does happen to win, at least one of the Big Three won\u2019t be fighting for the title at Homestead-Miami.<\/p>\n

As if there weren\u2019t enough Playoff permutations in Sunday\u2019s race already, the track itself is a major wild card. The start\/finish line has been moved to what used to be the backstretch, which will force the majority of cars to restart in Turn 4. The potential for chaos is magnified commensurately.<\/p>\n

And the only one who won\u2019t be sweating is Logano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2013 You can\u2019t blame Joey Logano for considering himself a favorite to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. He\u2019s the only driver entering Sunday\u2019s Can-Am 500 at the reconfigured ISM Raceway with no stress when it comes to qualifying for the Nov. 18 Championship 4 race […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":22784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[561,16],"class_list":["post-22888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-ism-raceway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/358457.jpg?fit=4356%2C2904&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5Xa","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22890,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22888\/revisions\/22890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}