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NASCAR: Logano beats Chastain to win South Point 400 in Las Vegas

Posted by AR1 staff

Joey Logano came alive at the right time to win the South Point 400 NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday, and as a result, he leaves Vegas with a Championship 4 spot.

Logano capitalized on his fresher tires and passed Ross Chastain in the closing laps.

Pole sitter Ross Chastain was 2nd for Chevrolet and Kyle Busch brought his JGR Toyota home in 3rd as 1-second covered the top-3.

South Point 400 race winner Joey Logano will be in the final 4 playoff.

A late-race, four-tire stop from the No. 22 team put Logano on a tire advantage in front of a majority of the leaders. As the laps ticked, Logano continuously moved closer to the lead and found the move off Turn 4 with four laps to go to get around fellow playoff driver Chastain.

The winning pitstop – Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, pits during the NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 16, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Chastain’s runner-up finish puts him 18 points above the elimination cutline.

Kyle Busch, Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five.

Briscoe recovered after a difficult start to the race that nearly saw him go one lap down and now sits just nine points behind Hamlin in the battle for the final Championship 4 spot.

Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, AJ Allmendinger and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10.

With 40 laps to go, a second playoff driver suffered a setback as Ryan Blaney spun off Turn 2 and hit the inside wall coming down the backstretch. The No. 12 Team Penske Ford resumed on track but finished seven laps down in 28th.

Chase Elliott entered the Round of 8 as the points leader but couldn’t find the speed to crack the top 10 throughout the 267-lap event and brought home the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in 21st. Elliott’s teammate William Byron finished 13th.

Major playoff implications and boiling tempers highlighted Stage 2 as on Lap 94, 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace wrecked off Turn 4 after the No. 45 Toyota slammed the wall and came back down the track, turning the No. 5 Chevrolet. When Larson’s car came up the track, Christopher Bell got caught in the incident as the No. 5 clipped the left rear of Bell’s No. 20 Toyota.

The damage Bell’s car sustained in the incident ended his day, forcing the No. 20 to finish 34th.

Bubba Wallace runs out of talent

The big story of the race was Bubba Wallace running out of talent and hitting the turn 4 wall then purposely taking out Kyle Larson. Then Wallace tried to start a fight with Larson in the infield.

Replays show the incident was clearly Wallace’s fault, but then it is to be expected given his lack of talent behind the wheel.

The talentless Wallace said afterward he does not lift for anyone.  So instead he drives right up into the outside wall and takes out he and two other cars.

NASCAR needs to suspend Wallace not only for his actions on the track, but also off the track, a racist picking on a small Asian driver.

Bubba Wallace needs to be suspended for the retaliation in the vehicle against Larson. Full stop.

These cars are way too dangerous for that. And then having time to walk and calm down and choosing violence?  Unacceptable.

And he took out fellow Toyota driver Bell who was in the playoffs up to today.

Race Results

# DENOTES ROOKIE
(i) NOT ELIGIBLE FOR POINTS
(*) REQUIRED TO QUALIFY ON TIME