Joey Logano championship a fitting ending to upside-down NASCAR season

Much will be made about the fact that Logano won the championship despite ranking 12th in points over the course of the full season. He won despite being, literally, eliminated from the playoffs after the second round, just to get back in because Alex Bowman was disqualified at the Charlotte Roval. 

He won despite only making the playoffs at all due to emerging victorious in a five-overtime, fuel-saving circus of a finish at Nashville Superspeedway in June.

But in a way, maybe it's the result this season deserved.

2024 was without a doubt one of the most chaotic seasons in NASCAR history. It was a season that saw six last-lap passes. A season that saw 13 races go into extra laps, an all-time record. A season that saw 18 different race winners, including two who were outside the top-30 in points at the time. A season that had saw three photo finishes, including the closest-ever at Kansas Speedway.

That's still only the tip of the iceberg. That aforementioned five-overtime Nashville finish was an all-time record for the most overtimes in a race. Three different races saw NASCAR use rain tires, including twice on ovals at Richmond and New Hampshire. 

There was the finish to the second Richmond race, when Austin Dillon wrecked both Logano and Denny Hamlin to win and unprecedentedly had his playoff eligibility stripped.

This past week, the chaos got cranked up to 11. In the penultimate round at Martinsville Speedway, both Chevrolet and Toyota attempted to manipulate the finish for their respective drivers William Byron and Christopher Bell, who were battling for the final spot to advance to the championship round. 

Then, just when you thought you'd seen it all, the pace car crashed early on in Sunday's race at Phoenix.

In other words, if there was ever a season fit for some upside-down, inside-out drama in the championship fight, it was this one. Leave it to Logano to be the guy to provide that drama, after improbably continuing what now seems like a dark magic-inspired streak of making it to the championship race in every even-numbered year since the inception of NASCAR's elimination playoffs in 2014.

Mileage will vary as to the legitimacy of Logano's title. He was not the best overall driver of the season, or even close to it for that matter. But he played the same game everybody else did, and in 2024, it may as well have been a game of Mario Kart with the items on the most aggressive setting possible. 

So take it for what it is: the only sensible ending to a season that made no sense.