NASCAR standings 2014: Mistakes cost Joey Logano championship bid

Considering the stakes and the gravity of the situation, the reaction was understandable. As Joey Logano exited pit road with less than 20 laps remaining in Sunday’s championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway he began pounding the wheel in frustration.

A mishap on a pit stop saw the No. 22 car fall off the jack. And as his team scrambled to correct the situation precious seconds ticked away, dropping Logano from inside the top 10 to 21st. As one of four Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers eligible for the championship, it was a critical mistake at a very inopportune time.

What had been a good chance of winning his first title instead evaporated into the South Florida night.

“I was pretty pissed off,” said Logano struggling to find the words to explain his emotions in that moment. “You know your chances went down a lot. I didn’t say it was over, we didn’t give up.

“When you’re that far back it’s like, ‘Oh, you can’t make that up with 12 (laps) to go’ or whatever it was. It’s just too hard to make that up. All you can do is try.”

Throughout much of the Ford EcoBoost 400 Logano had kept pace with, and at times outran, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin, the other title contenders. But in the latter stages a series of gaffes inflicted the No. 22 team.

First, Logano scraped the wall while running second. What followed next were three consecutive slow pit stops, which continually cost him valuable positions on the track.

In a race and a Chase format where mistakes would be punished severely, all Logano could do was finish 16th. Harvick would win the race and the championship, while Newman finished a close second, with Hamlin sliding back to seventh.

“Sometimes you make a mistake, and we knew coming into this race you can’t afford to make one mistake and put yourself behind,” Logano said. “We just made a couple tonight which put us back. Obviously, our pit crew has done a good job this year. I’m not putting them down over one thing; it just was bad timing on one (stop).”

What made the events especially frustrating was Logano had entered the championship round as one of the favorites. On the year he had won a career-best five races, and especially excelled on intermediate tracks like Homestead.

“Unfortunately, a great season like that makes this overall finish fourth because of one mistake, but that’s what the rules are. We understand that,” Logano said. “This team did a great job of consistently being fast. In the previous years that would have been perfect. But coming into this race and the way the points go, it doesn’t pay any more obviously.

“Just didn’t execute perfectly tonight, and for that reason we’ll finish fourth. But we still feel like we did a lot better than fourth this season.”

2014 Sprint Cup Series Standings