Against all odds, Joey Logano has become NASCAR's championship favorite

When the history books reflect on Joey Logano's 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, they will be quite conflicted.

From a statistical standpoint, Logano is in the middle of his worst season since 2012 — the final year of his tenure with Joe Gibbs Racing.

However, Logano's largely mediocre season has been defined by three wins that have somehow lifted him to his current status as the championship favorite.

On Sunday, it was a gutsy call by crew chief Paul Wolfe that gave Logano the win at Las Vegas and a ticket to the Championship Four. Wolfe opted to leave Logano on the racetrack for the entirety of Stage Three, and a hard-charging Christopher Bell fell six-tenths of a second shy of stealing Logano's glory for himself.

At Nashville, a similar strategy call from Wolfe granted Logano his first victory of the season, which locked Logano into the playoffs at a time when the No. 22 team was squarely on the playoff bubble.

It seems asinine to say that Logano — who only has 11 top-10 finishes in 33 races this season — can be given the title of championship favorite, but in NASCAR's playoff era, that distinction can change in a single race.

In both 2018 and 2022, Logano won the championship after winning the first race of the Round of 8, just as he did on Sunday. While he still has to show up to both Homestead-Miami and Martinsville, those races have no bearing on the fate of his season, and the employees at Team Penske have two extra weeks to prepare Logano's championship vehicle.

A look at Logano's career will tell you that this performance wasn't surprising. The No. 22 team has a tendency to show out when it's least expected. Logano has never had a season this bad at team Penske, and when the checkered flag flew last Sunday in Charlotte, he was eliminated from the playoffs altogether.

Alex Bowman's disqualification gave Logano new life, and as it turns out, the pundits who called for Logano's competitors to heed their warnings were correct.

There has never been a driver or team that has exhibited indomitability in NASCAR's elimination era quite like Logano and Team Penske, who seem to have taken a leaf out of the confetti-covered book of Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus.

The Hall of Fame duo won five consecutive Cup Series championships from 2006 to 2010 and did so by using the regular season as a glorified test session for the Chase, only to dismantle the field when the postseason rolled around.

Years such as 2014, 2015 and 2016 prove that Logano has the potential to be dominant, but he always leaves his greatest and most permanent marks in the playoffs, especially when nobody expects him to run up front.

The road from Daytona to the Round of 8 has been difficult for Logano, but Sunday was another example of why you can never count him out.

With two weeks to prepare for Phoenix, don't be surprised if "Sliced Bread" hoists his third Bill France Cup on Nov. 10.