Chaotic Nashville finish shows why NASCAR results aren't the be-all, end-all

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates the win during the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.

Joey Logano won the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday — which ended up being more like the Ally 450 — in a finish that can only be described as cartoonish.

Zane Smith finished second, Tyler Reddick was third, Ryan Preece was fourth and Chris Buescher was fifth after the conclusion of five — count 'em, five — overtime periods, while most of the rest of the field either crashed, ran out of gas, or both.

Logano's average running position throughout the race was 15.1. Smith's was 28.8. Preece's was 23.6. Before the caution came out for an Austin Cindric spin to set up the first overtime attempt, all three of them were running well outside the top 10. Five yellow flags later, all three of them ended up finishing in the top four.

Meanwhile Denny Hamlin, who was leading before the race was turned upside-down, ended up finishing 12th after he was forced to pit for fuel. Ross Chastain, who was second, ended up wrecked with a 33rd-place result.

Kyle Larson fell to third from eighth, Kyle Busch went from fourth to 27th and Ty Gibbs from fifth to 23rd.

Mileage may vary regarding how fair it is for a race to end the way Sunday's did — some will claim that it's all part of the nature of the sport while purists will argue NASCAR should go back to letting races finish under caution in order to prevent these circus endings.

Regardless, though, it's a reminder that while a driver's finish is what goes down in the record books, it often isn't reflective of their full performance and can't be taken at face value as such.

While it's not to discredit Logano's win, no one who watched Sunday's race from start to finish can say he had the best performance. He probably didn't even have the 10th-best performance. He simply found himself in the right place at the right time, with crew chief Paul Wolfe's call to leave him on the track through all the late cautions while running on fumes miraculously paying off.

Smith is an even more extreme example. He ran outside the top-30 on pure pace for most of the afternoon, climbed up towards the top-20 due to pit strategy in the final stage, and then sat and watched while everybody else's race went down the drain.

You can't blame him for maximizing his result, but it doesn't change the flukish nature of how he earned it.

Such is the nature of NASCAR racing, though. In this regard, it's unlike any other sport in that what happens during the first 90 percent of an event can be rendered effectively meaningless by external factors.

Imagine if, during an NFL game, a team was leading by multiple scores with possession of the ball in the final minutes ... just for the scoreboard to spontaneously reset and now that team must drive down the field again to win the game.

That's what happens in NASCAR on a semi-regular basis, and we must remember that when it comes down to the end of the year and we're all quibbling over who deserves the championship or who has had the best season; reciting stats such as top-10s or average finish or full-season points with no context as to how those finishes were achieved.

Logano played by the same rules as everyone else in Nashville, but his win doesn't move the needle a whole lot when assessing his performance in 2024.

Long story short: The end result may be what every driver fights for, but it can be pretty random at times. Sunday was one of those times and then some.

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