Joey Logano seizes fresh chance in NASCAR playoffs to take spot in championship finale

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Knocked out of the playoffs this time last week, Joey Logano seized on his reversal of fortune to become the first driver locked into NASCAR's championship finale.

Logano was below the cutline and eliminated from the eight-driver field when he left Charlotte Motor Speedway last Sunday. But when Alex Bowman's car failed post-race inspection, Bowman was disqualified and Logano reinstated to the playoff field.

The only two-time Cup champion in the playoff field, Logano passed Daniel Suarez with five laps remaining Sunday for his fourth career victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It is the second win of the playoffs for Logano and the Team Penske driver makes a Ford the first one locked into the winner-take-all final four at Phoenix Raceway next month.

Logano had to hold off pole-sitter Christopher Bell, who led a race-high 156 laps, over the closing two laps. A late pit stop put Bell 30 seconds behind Suarez, and Bell was cruising in his Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing trying to run down Suarez when Logano got to Suarez first.

Bell didn't have enough to catch Logano and finished 0.662 seconds back.

“We're going to the championship four again!” Logano shouted on the frontstretch. He and Kyle Busch are the only two-time active champions, with Logano now in position to win a third Cup title.

Bell, who has made it to the championship race the last two years, was clearly disappointed after such a dominating day.

“I don't know, I don't know, and I don't think I've come to terms with this yet,” Bell said. “Just a bummer. I think everyone on this team did everything perfect. Just because I ran second today doesn't mean I'm going to finish anywhere next week. You're never safe in this deal, so we needed to win today and unfortunately, we didn't.”

Suarez, who was eliminated from the playoffs last week, finished third in a Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing. William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports was fourth, followed by teammate Bowman and Gibbs driver Martin Truex Jr., who was eliminated from the playoffs in the first round in his final season of full-time NASCAR racing.

Gibbs driver Denny Hamlin was eighth in a massive recovery on an underwhelming day and only four playoff drivers finished in the top 10.

Kyle Larson, winner of two straight at Las Vegas as well as last week at Charlotte, came from two laps down to finish 11th. The remaining three playoff drivers had terrible days as reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and regular-season champion Tyler Reddick were all collected in the same early crash.

Logano is locked into the championship race, while Bell, Larson and Byron are above the cutline. Hamlin, Reddick, Blaney and Elliott are all below the elimination mark with two races remaining in the round.

Reddick rolled his car early to drop into a deep playoff hole.

Reddick, who had just won the first stage to pick up 10 bonus points, was involved in a multicar wreck moments after the start of the second stage. The Toyota from 23XI Racing made contact with Elliott to trigger the crash.

“You've just got to be aggressive on restarts, I just had a split second to make a decision,” Reddick said. “By the time I realized I was in trouble, it was too late. There was nowhere really to go. Be a little conservative, that's what we needed to do. We'll learn from it.”

Reddick was attempting to gain on-track position and misjudged how much room he had.

“I thought the hole was there; it wasn't. It closed so quickly," Reddick said on his radio.

The crash also collected Blaney, who had driven from last in the field into the top 20 after a crash in Saturday practice prevented Blaney from making a qualifying lap.

Blaney and Elliott were able to continue, but the crash ended Reddick's race. Blaney finished 32nd, Elliott was 33rd and Reddick was 35th.

NASCAR moves to Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday for the middle race of the round of eight. Bell is the defending race winner.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) does a burnout after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) makes a pit stop during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) does a burnout after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series drivers Joey Logano (22) and Martin Truex Jr. (19) race during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) does a burnout after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series drivers Tyler Reddick (45) and Brad Keselowski (6) slide through the infield grass after a crash during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

NASCAR Cup Series drivers Chase Elliott (9) Tyler Reddick (45) and Brad Keselowski (6) slide across the front straightaway after a crash during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Tyler Reddick makes a pit stop after a crash during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Tyler Reddick (45) crashes into Brad Keselowski (6) after colliding with Chase Elliott (9) during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) races during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump manned the fry station at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Sunday before staging an impromptu news conference, answering questions through the drive-thru window.

As reporters and aides watched, an employee showed Trump how to dunk baskets of fries in oil, salt the fries and put them into boxes using a scoop. Trump, a well-known fan of fast food and a notorious germophobe, expressed amazement that he didn't have to touch the fries with his hands.

“It requires great expertise, actually, to do it right and to do it fast,” Trump said with a grin, putting away his suit jacket and wearing an apron over his shirt and tie.

The visit came as he's tried to counter Democratic nominee Kamala Harris' accounts on the campaign of working at the fast-food chain while in college, an experience that Trump has claimed — without offering evidence — never happened.

A large crowd lined the street outside the restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, which is part of Bucks County, a key swing voter area north of Philadelphia. Later Sunday, Trump was attending an evening town hall in Lancaster before catching the Pittsburgh Steelers home game against the New York Jets.

After serving bags of takeout to people in the drive-thru lane, Trump leaned out of the window, still wearing the apron, to take questions from the media staged outside. The former president, who has constantly promoted falsehoods about his 2020 election loss, said he would respect the results of next month's vote “if it's a fair election.”

He joked about getting one reporter ice cream and when another asked what message he had for Harris on her 60th birthday on Sunday, Trump said, “I would say, ‘Happy Birthday, Kamala,’” adding, “I think I’ll get her some flowers.”

Trump did not directly answer a question of whether he might support increased minimum wages after seeing McDonald’s employees in action but said, “These people work hard. They’re great.”

He added that “I just saw something … a process that’s beautiful.”

When aides finally urged him to wrap things up so he could hit the road to his next event, Trump offered, “Wasn’t that a strange place to do a news conference?”

Trump has fixated in recent weeks on the summer job Harris said she held in college, working the cash register and making fries at McDonald’s while in college. Trump says the vice president has “lied about working” there, but not offered evidence for claiming that.

Harris spokesman Joseph Costello said the former president's McDonald's visit “showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain.”

“Trump doesn’t understand what it’s like to work for a living, no matter how many staged photo ops he does, and his entire second term plan is to give himself, his wealthy buddies, and giant corporations another massive tax cut,” Costello said in a statement.

In an interview last month on MSNBC, the vice president pushed back on Trump’s claims, saying she did work at the fast-food chain four decades ago when she was in college.

“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family,” she said. “I worked there as a student.”

Harris also said: “I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs.”

Trump has long spread groundless claims about his opponents based on their personal history, particularly women and racial minorities.

Before he ran for president, Trump was a leading voice of the “birther” conspiracy that baselessly claimed President Barack Obama was from Africa, was not an American citizen and therefore was ineligible to be president. Trump used it to raise his own political profile, demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate and five years after Obama did so, Trump finally admitted that Obama was born in the United States.

During his first run for president, Trump repeated a tabloid’s claims that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, had links to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Cruz and Trump competed for the party’s 2016 nomination.

In January of this year, when Trump was facing Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, in the Republican primary, he shared on his social media network a post with false claims that Haley’s parents were not citizens when she was born, therefore making her ineligible to be president.

Haley is the South Carolina-born daughter of Indian immigrants, making her automatically a native-born citizen and meeting the constitutional requirement to run for president.

And Trump has continued to promote baseless claims during this campaign. Trump said during his presidential debate with Harris that immigrants who had settled in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets — a claim he suggested in an interview Saturday was still true even though he could provide no confirmation.

“It is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community,” the McDonald’s location’s owner, Derek Giacomantonio, said in a statement. “That’s why I accepted former President Trump’s request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald’s.”

Police closed the busy streets around the McDonald’s during Trump's visit. Authorities cordoned off the restaurant as a crowd a couple blocks long gathered, sometimes 10- to 15-deep, across the street straining to catch a glimpse of Trump. Horns honked and music blared as Trump supporters waved flags, held signs and took pictures.

John Waters, of nearby Fairless Hills, had never been to a Trump rally and had hoped to see the former president so close to his house after missing other nearby rallies.

“When I drove up, all the cars, unbelievable, I was like, ‘He’s here’s, he’s coming, he’s definitely coming with this all traffic,’” Waters said.

Trump is especially partial to McDonald's Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. He’s talked often about how he trusts big chains more than smaller restaurants since they have big reputations to maintain, and the former president’s staff often pick up McDonald’s and serve it on his plane.

Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and fundraiser who owns a nearby athletic complex and chaired Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Republican National Convention, said he arranged Trump’s visit to the locally owned McDonald’s franchise.

The campaign contacted him looking for a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and Worthington started looking for one. He got in touch with Giacomantonio through a friend and talked the franchise owner through some initial nervousness.

Giacomantonio needed to know that McDonald’s corporate offices would be OK with it, first. Second, he was concerned that being seen as a Trump supporter would hurt his business or a spark boycott, Worthington said.

“He certainly had concerns, but I eased his mind, and talked to him about the benefits,” Worthington said.

Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks from a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, center, speaks with an employee behind the counter during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during an interview at a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump hands an order to a customer at a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump cheer outside of a McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., after Trump made a campaign stop, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump cheer outside of a McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., after Trump made a campaign stop, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves from a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump hands an order to a customer at a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump hands an order to an employee at the drive-thru window during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, uses a frier alongside an employee during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump holds an order near the drive-thru window during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump poses with employees during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump serves french fries as an employee looks on during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks while standing at a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

An employee hands an order to Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to a customer at a drive-thru window during a campaign stop at a McDonald's, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, hands off an order of fries after working alongside an employee during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Ken Lane, of Lancaster, Pa., is pictured outside the Lancaster Convention Center, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Donald Trump-themed stuffed toy ducks are pictured before the Republican presidential nominee former President arrives at the Lancaster Convention Center in Lancaster, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Ken Lane, of Lancaster, Pa., is pictured outside the Lancaster Convention Center, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gather outside the Lancaster Convention Center in Lancaster, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gather outside the Lancaster Convention Center in Lancaster, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump watches as a video featuring Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris plays during a campaign event, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024 in Detroit. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)