When it was all said and done, Joey Logano ended the wild weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway as the happiest man in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Logano, who had one win during his sometimes-inconsistent regular season, became the first driver to advance to the Round of 12 as he held off Atlanta’s February winner, Daniel Suàrez, and Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney in overtime.
His second win of the season capped off an already busy race weekend, which was headlined by the excitement around the start of the NASCAR Playoffs and the dread caused by the ongoing charter negotiations, which took an unexpected turn on Saturday morning.
Multiple reports said NASCAR offered teams a new proposal for its charter agreement on Friday evening, and all but two Cup teams signed it.
23XI Racing, the Toyota-powered team co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, and Front Row Motorsports did not agree to NASCAR’s offer. 23XI released a statement on Saturday morning:
Front Row’s owner, Bob Jenkins, spoke to KickinTheTires.net and said that NASCAR’s 105-page proposal was sent to teams at 6 p.m. on Friday with a midnight deadline for a signature.
Without a deal in place and two teams, both of which are planning to expand to three-car operations in 2025, holding out, it’s unclear where the industry goes from here.
The deadline for an accord which keeps the charter system in existence is at the end of the calendar year, so there is still time for everyone from NASCAR and within the Cup garage to get on the same page. But will NASCAR relent and meet the teams’ desires? Will the teams give in to NASCAR? Or can something as unthinkable and catastrophic as the 1996 Indy car split occur?
For the sake of those who work in the sport, hopefully not. But one thing is clear: not everyone is happy with how the negotiations are going and the longer they stagnate, the more worrisome it becomes.
On the other hand, there is excitement around the industry, at least for the next two months, because the 10-race run to the championship is underway. This year’s Darlington winners Brad Keselowski and Chase Briscoe, regular season champion Tyler Reddick, Suàrez, and the four drivers each from Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Penske (including Harrison Burton of Wood Brothers Racing) are the 16 drivers battling for the title.
Before the first stage even ended, two playoff drivers were taken out of contention. Kyle Larson’s car snapped loose while he was running in the top three, and he slammed into the Turn 2 wall.
All but Chase Briscoe evaded Larson’s spinning No. 5 car. Briscoe clobbered Larson from behind as he had little room to maneuver in the middle of the track and failed to slow down enough to stay away from the Hendrick Motorsports car.
Larson still came away 14 points above the cutoff with two races still to go in the Round of 16, but Briscoe is in a hole as he is already 21 points below 12th-place Ty Gibbs in the standings.
“I was already loaded in the corner. It just got loose, and when you’re spinning or getting ready to spin, you have to turn right,” Larson said. “I just overcorrected, I guess. It’s just a bummer. We’ll see how everything kind of shakes out after today; go onto Watkins Glen and try to have a good day.”
Mathematically, Briscoe isn’t in a must-win situation yet, but in this win-and-advance playoff format, a trophy at the Glen or Bristol Motor Speedway would solve all his problems before entering the next playoff round.
“Bristol, we’ve started in the top three of four there the last three times we went,” Briscoe said. “We’ve obviously had really good speed. We tested there about a month-and-a-half ago, and then the road courses we’ve always been really good.
“With the (tire) fall-off they’re talking about at Watkins Glen, I think we will be in good shape. The slick, wore out, where we’re slipping and sliding around is typically when we’re our strongest, so I feel like we can win any of the two.”
As for Sunday’s winner, Logano, he can feel slightly more relaxed for the next two weeks. There are still points and trophies to earn ahead, but at least he knows his run for a third championship is guaranteed for another few races, unlike last season, when he was bounced after the first round.
“We didn’t (advance) last year, and it hurt a lot, but (the team) just gives me really fast cars on superspeedways, and we always find ourselves towards the front of them,” Logano said. “We just end up wrecking more times than not. So, to be able to finally capitalize on a fast race car and win here in Atlanta again … waking up dreaming of just racing on this racetrack, so pulling into Victory Lane here is always a special one.”
