Sportsman of the Week Ending 11/10/2024

History was made in the NASCAR Cup Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway as a two-time champion managed to win his second title in three years and join an elite fraternity of NASCAR Champions.  Joey Logano behind the wheel of his Ford dominated much of the third stage and held off Penske teammate, and 2023 Cup Champion Ryan Blaney for his third Cup Championship joining nine other drivers all time.  Logano had a nondescript regular season finishing well outside of tenth place in the points but found the winning touch in the Playoffs winning three times (only Kyle Larson won more than once besides him) including the first race of the round of 8, then, of course, the Championship 4 race on Sunday to win him the Cup.  This is also Logano's third Sportsman of the Week title, but first in 6 years when he won his first championship in 2018.  His first was a Daytona 500 victory three years earlier   This puts Logano tied for the most Sportsman of the Week ever with a lot of career in front of him.  We'll look forward to next year, but for now Joey Logano is the Longhorndave Sportsman of the Week!

Sportsman of the Week Ending 11/18/2018

The 2018 NASCAR season would down with an exciting finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway among four drivers who had earned the finalist berth.  Or as Joey Logano called it, "The Big 3, and me".  Well "me" showed the Big 3 that he was bigger.  Or faster.  At or near the front during most of the race, Logano feasted on "short runs" (e.g. small periods of green flags between cautions) to run away from the field in the final 20 laps.  Logano's #22 Penske Pennzoil car continually raced ahead of the others in the first few dozen laps of a run, and that was all it took after the final caution came with under 30 laps to go.  He pegged each of the drivers in front of him and then opened a several second gap not only beating the others, but winning the race.  It was Logano's first Monster Energy Cup Series title for his strong career.  There might be many more, but he is our Longhorndave Sportsman of the Week!

Sportsman of the Week Ending 5/27/2018

It's a tradition of this Blog to recognize a driver on Memorial Day Weekend, which is one of the top weekends in motor sports.  This year one of the greats just broke through on the biggest stage.  William Power has been one of the best drivers in Indy Car, but the Indianapolis 500 had always alluded him.  In what turned out to be the least predictable race, Power was able to outlast the few cars ahead of him that ran short on fuel, while keeping an aggressive fuel strategy himself to win the race without much challenge.  The Penske Racing Team driving Australian held off Ed Carpenter who finished second place but he was distant.  Like many athletes who achieve their pinnacle milestone later in their careers, the whispers of "greatest to never win the [big event]" are abated, and Power goes down in the annals of this Blog as Sportsman of the Week!