NASCAR
Updated 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Standings Following Joey Logano’s Victory Over the Busch Brothers
John Moriello started covering sports in 1982, began digital publishing in 1995, and joined Sportscasting in 2020. A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR. Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls. John is a member of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), the President of the New York State Sportswriters Association, and a two-time Best of Gannett winner for print and online collaborations whose work has appeared on FoxSports.com and MaxPreps.com.
Get to know John Moriello betterPublished06 Jun 2022
There are undoubtedly some holdouts who don’t want to concede that Joey Logano has already earned his place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, an opinion exacerbated most recently by the incident with William Byron at Darlington.
We’ve got some bad news for those folks: You’ve got bigger issues in the interim. Namely, Logano might just earn his second Cup Series championship, giving him bragging rights for a year … and all but guaranteeing Hall of Fame enshrinement.
Joey Logano is sixth in the latest NASCAR Cup Series standings
Sixth place barely gets a competitor on the medals stand in many individual sports, but it’s a good place for Joey Logano to be 15 races into the NASCAR Cup Series season. Logano’s victory Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway was his second of the season, not even counting his triumph in the season-opening Busch Light Clash, a non-points race.
With his place in the postseason assured, Logano can focus on piling up additional playoff points that can help him transfer into the second and third rounds, then potentially the Championship 4.
And none of what we’re seeing from him should be a surprise. Logano has won multiple races in seven of the last nine seasons. In addition, he has finished in the top eight of the final standings nine times in the past 10 years.
Translation: Logano is here to stay in the 2022 championship race.
| Rank | Driver | Points | Race Wins | Stage Wins | Playoff Pts | Top 5 | Top 10 |
| 1 | Chase Elliott | 507 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 9 |
| 2 | Kyle Busch | 498 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 11 |
| 3 | Ross Chastain | 490 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 7 | 9 |
| 4 | Ryan Blaney | 479 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 7 |
| 5 | Martin Truex Jr. | 470 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| 6 | Joey Logano | 467 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 7 |
| 7 | Kyle Larson | 444 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| 8 | Alex Bowman | 439 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 9 |
| 9 | William Byron | 438 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 4 |
| 10 | Christopher Bell | 434 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 9 |
| 11 | Aric Almirola | 385 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| 12 | Tyler Reddick | 379 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 13 | Kevin Harvick | 377 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 |
| 14 | Chase Briscoe | 362 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
| 15 | Erik Jones | 353 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 16 | Austin Dillon | 350 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
Winless Ryan Blaney and/or Ryan Truex should be in great shape
The legal sportsbooks should consider a new weekly prop bet based on an over/under for the number of laps Ryan Blaney will lead in the race. After leading 12 laps this past weekend, Blaney has paced the field around the track for at least one lap in 13 of 15 races this season.
That hasn’t translated into a victory (yet), but Blaney has led 385 laps. Contrast that with a year ago, when Blaney won three times despite leading only 423 laps for the 36-race season.
Blaney is fourth in the standings with 11 races left in the regular season. As long as there are no more than four more first-time winners this season, he should make the playoffs based on points. And considering that Chase Elliott, who already owns a win, could be good for a couple of wins in the upcoming four road races, Blaney can breathe a bit more easily.
At the moment, Blaney is 102 points above the cut line, Ryan Truex is close behind at 93 points over, and Christopher Bell can feel somewhat comfortable for now at plus-57.
If the regular season ended today, Aric Almirola (plus-8) and Tyler Reddick (plus-2) would also sneak in. Kevin Harvick (minus-2), Erik Jones (minus-26), and Austin Dillon (minus-29) lead the list of drivers on the outside looking in.
| Rank | Driver | Points | Race Wins | Stage Wins | Playoff Pts | Top 5 | Top 10 |
| 17 | Kurt Busch | 333 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 6 |
| 18 | Austin Cindric | 330 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 2 |
| 19 | Denny Hamlin | 319 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 3 |
| 20 | Daniel Suarez | 319 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 21 | Michael McDowell | 293 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| 22 | Bubba Wallace | 283 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 23 | Justin Haley | 278 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 24 | Chris Buescher | 275 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 25 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 272 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 26 | Ty Dillon | 256 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 27 | Cole Custer | 246 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rank | Driver | Points | Race Wins | Stage Wins | Playoff Pts | Top 5 | Top 10 |
| 28 | Harrison Burton | 223 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 29 | Todd Gilliland | 221 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 30 | Brad Keselowski | 200 | 0 | 0 | -10 | 0 | 1 |
| 31 | Corey LaJoie | 182 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 32 | Cody Ware | 133 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 33 | BJ McLeod | 104 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 34 | David Ragan | 61 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 35 | Greg Biffle | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 36 | Jacques Villeneuve | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Boris Said | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 38 | Joey Hand | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
All stats courtesy of Racing Reference.
Like Sportscasting on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @sportscasting19 and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
