Larson surges as others stumble in playoff chase

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It had been more than seven years since Joey Logano was knocked out of a race with an engine failure. The Roush Yates engines had been so reliable that an issue with the powerplant was the least of Team Penske’s concerns.

Then Logano noticed he was lacking power late at Texas Motor Speedway, where car after car after car began to pass his Ford. The strategy set by the No. 22 team wasn’t working, ill-timed cautions were preventing Logano from making up any real ground and then, with 38 laps remaining, his sputtering engine went poof.

Logano drove his directly to the garage and tried his best to find the positives as his rivals in NASCAR’s race for the Cup Series title roared around the track Sunday.

“It is just a real letdown moment,” Logano said. “Roush Yates has built us good motors. I don’t have any room to complain. We haven’t blown one up in years. At least not on the 22 car. It is bad timing, I will say that, but it is what it is.”

The 30th-place finish dropped Logano to last among the final eight drivers remaining in NASCAR’s playoffs. Logano almost certainly needs to win either this weekend at Kansas Speedway or next week at Martinsville Speedway to advance to the championship finale for the fifth time in eight years.

“We have to move on, it is what it is now and we can’t change it,” Logano said. “We will be fighting from here. Now we know what we have to do these next two weeks. We better go find a way to win.”

The tiny bit of a silver lining for Logano was that he was far from the only playoff driver to struggle. Kyle Larson — the favorite to win the championship — won his seventh Cup race of the season and earned the first of four spots in the Nov. 7 title-deciding race at Phoenix.

Few doubted that Larson would be in the final four after the comeback season he’s had. A year after missing all but four Cup races for using a racial slur during a video game, he has won a career-best eight Cup races — nine if you count the non-points All-Star race — and has a win in each of the first three rounds of the playoffs.

JENNA FRYER