Joey Logano Wins His 1st NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series Title

The NASCAR playoffs came into South Florida's Homestead - Miami Speedway with four drivers fighting for the championship.

The four drivers were 'The Big Three' of Kyle Busch - #18 (Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota Camry), Martin Truex Jr. - #78 (Furniture Row Racing, Toyota Camry), and Kevin Harvick - #4 (Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Fusion). The fourth driver was Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Penske Racing Ford Fusion.

Logano came into the race calling himself the one to beat, while most of the NASCAR drivers and teams were thinking who of 'The Big Three' would take home the title at the end of the night.

Many people hoped that the defending champion, Martin Truex Jr. would pull off the win, enabling his team (Furniture Row Racing) to leave the series in style and glory. Furniture Row Racing announced, earlier in the playoffs, that it would be closing their doors at the end of the season, leaving NASCAR competition. The race at Homestead - Miami would be the team's final race together.

One of Kevin Harvick's sponsors, Busch Beer, tweeted that they would run a 'meme' paint scheme if Harvick did not win. The 'meme' paint scheme would be ran on the car sometime during the upcoming 2019 MENCS season.

However, Sunday was Logano's day as he took home the victory.

The race was quite hard fought between the championship contenders. For quite sometime the race seemed to be buttoned up by Harvick in the first two stages of competition. Until in the third stage, when things started to heat up. Logano and Truex Jr. started battling for first place.

Then came the caution.

Brad Keselowski (Logano's teammate) tagged Daniel Suarez (Kyle Busch's teammate) which meant the race belonged in the hands of the pit crews. All four championship contending drivers pit. They left pit road with Busch out first, Truex Jr., Logano, and Harvick. All four championship drivers would start 1-2-3-4 for the restart, setting up a thrilling dash to the finish. Truex Jr. takes the lead and starts to drive away. Until Logano catches and passes him with 12 laps to go. Logano starts to pull away and well, the rest is history.

Martin Truex Jr. would come home second in his team's final race together as NASCAR MENCS competitors.

The win for Logano came on the same day, just six years prior that his teammate Brad Keselowski won his first championship.

Sources: 

Fox Sports - foxsports.com, NASCAR - nascar.com, & NBCSN - nbcsports.com