James: For Joey Logano, missed opportunity not a setback

FORT WORTH — Joey Logano was absolutely running away with it at Texas Motor Speedway. Well ahead, cutting his line across the 1.5-mile track, his gaze forward interrupted only occasionally for a glance to his right as he assessed the tactics of a lapped car.

The Team Penske driver squinted as he diverted his gaze back to his monitor and navigated a safe path away from his adversary Saturday afternoon in a fan appearance where he played contest-winners in a new NASCAR video game. On-lookers gathered around the small tent ogled at his progress on the large video board tethered to his console.

Logano had the situation similarly under control the next night during the AAA Texas 500, the second race in Round No. 3 of the Chase for the Sprint Cup. It seemed similarly effortless, as he led 178 of the first 188 laps after having amassed just 159 in 16 previous Texas starts that included a victory in 2014.

Then real racing happened. The strategy play of Martin Truex Jr.'s crew chief Cole Pearn, who had been waylaid by a pit call in dominating but falling short at Texas in the spring race, gave his driver fresher tires slightly earlier in a green flag sequence. Denied the pristine air of the leader, Logano filtered into the pack, never led again and had his late charge muted by a rain storm that ended the race with 41 laps remaining and Carl Edwards the winner.

Chase title fight tightens after Carl Edwards takes Texas

Certainly, this was no disaster.

Logano is third on the Chase grid — but tied for first in points at 4,074 with Jimmie Johnson, who won the Round 3 opener at Martinsnville Speedway, and reigning Sprint Cup champion Kyle Busch — with one event left to set the final four contenders for the Sprint Cup championship in two weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He’s tied in points. But that doesn’t nearly make him equal.

That win would have given Logano an automatic berth to the final for the second time in three years of the elimination-style Chase. Instead, he’s one point above the fourth-place cut line, two from fifth place, with Edwards joining Johnson as automatic qualifiers for the title race. And then there’s the matter of serial Phoenix-winner and 2014 Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick skulking in seventh position as the series heads to the desert.

All this combined to make second place unfulfilling.

Chase fast forward: Final title spots up for grabs in desert

“I mean, when you're that close to winning and you lead the most laps, second stings,” Logano said.  “That's our goal every week, is to win.  Anything short of that is a failure.  I feel like we were so close to that today.

"But ultimately, like you say, we did gain some points.  We're in right now.  We were out going into this race.  So, you know, we did the best we could as far as leading laps and getting that bonus point, or those two bonus points with the most laps led as well.  But we didn't get the win part.  That would have been nice.”

After sweeping the second round of the Chase last season, appearing set to win at Martinsville and pass go to Miami only to be wrecked by Matt Kenseth and eventually eliminated at Phoenix, Logano is well schooled in the principle of doing what one can as well as one can and hoping that an uncontrollable element doesn’t intercede.

Angry competitors and squall lines aren’t plottable on some scoring monitor. But points are, and Logano has his eye on the mirror.

Follow James on Twitter @brantjames