AVONDALE, Ariz. — The Team Penske No. 22 Ford for championship contender Joey Logano failed NASCAR Cup Series pre-qualifying inspection twice Saturday at Phoenix Raceway.
NASCAR officials penalized the No. 22 team with the ejection of car chief Tommy Ellis and the loss of pit-stall selection for Sunday’s season finale (3 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Peacock) at the 1-mile track.
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Logano is among four drivers who will vie for the Cup Series title Sunday. Teammate Ryan Blaney, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick are the other contenders in the Championship 4 field, and their cars passed inspection on their first try.
Logano earned the second starting spot for the season-ending race in Saturday’s Busch Light Pole Qualifying. Travis Geisler, Team Penske’s NASCAR competition director, said that the first two failures were “kind of the normal process, unfortunately,” and that forfeiting pit selection may not be such a disadvantage at Phoenix.
“I think it can be a challenge or it cannot be,” Geisler said. “It just depends on how all that works out, as far as who ends up around you. I think that, typically, when you get down to it, guys work together pretty well on pit road. We have really long stalls here, so it’s one of the easier places to have to get in and out. Somewhere like Martinsville, it’s a lot tougher issue. But I think here we can make do with wherever we end up.”
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Logano said there were no extra nerves watching his car make multiple inspection attempts, while the other title-contending teams each sailed through on try one.
“Yeah, business as usual,” said Logano, a two-time Cup Series champ. “I mean, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve got to focus on my job. That’s out of my hands, what goes on with that stuff. So obviously, when it comes down to this, everyone’s pushing and trying to get as much as they can. We thought we fixed it enough for the first time, and we didn’t, so we had to fix it even more so to really make sure you make it through. So just pushing the edge and just didn’t quite get by with what we thought was OK, but obviously it was too far.”
