Joey Logano, reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion, returned to victory lane after starting 27th in a race of attrition this evening at Texas Motor Speedway.
He and Penske Ford team-mate Ryan Blaney “methodically” fought through the pack, having started deep in the field.
Everything’s bigger in Texas! Texas Motor Speedway marks the first of three consecutive traditional 1.5-mile ovals giving a snapshot of the top contenders into the middle of the season. Fan-favourite Chase Elliott won here 12 months ago to break a long, hard winless streak of 42 races in a race of carnage and 16 cautions.
Carson Hocevar, in the #77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, took pole position ahead of 267 laps of Texas Motor Speedway and championship leader William Byron started beside him.
At the drop of the green flag, Byron held strong around the outside of Hocevar but had to back out into turns three and four to keep off the bumps.
Trackhouse’s drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez made good starts to gain 4 and 6 places respectively in the opening five laps.
Noah Gragson spun on lap 21 triggering the first caution of the day chasing Suarez. The whole field pit for fresh Goodyears and topped up with Sunoco fuel. Some took right side tyres only, while others opted for a full set. Last week’s winner Austin Cindric came out first, followed by Josh Berry, Texas native Chris Buescher and polesitter Hocevar.
Cindric held the lead over Berry on the restart coming to lap 28. In the following laps, it became clear that Cindric’s car was not the quickest of the field, under pressure from Berry and Buescher behind. Tyler Reddick’s pace was incredible as he began to pull up through the pack – having started 17th.
By lap 66, Reddick moved into the top six, gaining eight places since the restart. He was alongside Cindric for the lead coming to lap 75 when Denny Hamlin’s engine spectacularly blew up, with a raging fire beneath the car, and the second caution of the day fell.
Stage one ended under caution with Austin Cindric winning from Tyler Reddick. Berry returned from pit road first and his great restart allowed Larson to get alongside and pass Cindric.
Chase Briscoe brough out the caution when he caught the bump in turns three and four. Berry restarted with Larson beside him onto lap 94. After spending almost two laps side-by-side, Berry cleared Larson for the lead.
On lap 125, leader Josh Berry spun and slammed the wall in turns three and four as he caught the bump running high up on the race track while passing a lapped car.
Larson led the field onto pit road, then led them back off, with Hocevar and Preece (who both took two tyres) over Reddick and Buescher who took a full set of fresh Goodyears.
Todd Gilliland in the #34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, did not pit under caution. He was no obstacle as they restarted with 34 to go, leaving Larson to lead Reddick, Buescher and Preece as the laps ran out towards the end of stage two.
With only five laps to go in stage two, Chris Buescher’s right-rear tyre fell apart. He deliberately kept pace to help the carcass break free and land on the track, spawning a caution to prevent him from falling back too far.
The caution carried the race to the end of stage two, allowing Kyle Larson to win the stage – his fourth stage win at Texas in as many years and his sixth this year.
Byron was first off pit road following caution flag pit stops. He took two tyres with team-mate Elliott and Austin Cindric. Larson, Reddick and Wallace took four tyres.
Byron and Elliott led the field to green with 96 to go in stage three. Bubba Wallace found the wall on the exit of turn two, spun off the front of Joey Logano. He collected Noah Gragson, while AJ Allmendinger spun and caught Alex Bowman and Chad Finchum.
When they had re-racked, Byron and Elliott restarted on the front row with 88 to go. Elliott ran too high in turns three and four, losing time keeping the car under control over the bumps and he fell down to seventh. Cindric inherited the runner-up position.
Ryan Blaney pulled off a sensational move up the middle of three-wide entering turns three and four with Hocevar and Reddick either side of him. After starting 24th, Blaney was running extremely well and broke into the top five.
Byron, with steering gremlins, was stacking up the pack behind him. Kyle Larson fought past Cindric, who lost out more places, giving Ty Gibbs an opportunity to run on the top three. Larson passed Byron, followed by Gibbs, and a hard-charging Ryan Blaney.
On lap 197 (32 of 102) Blaney passed Gibbs for second.
Jesse Love, in his second ever Cup Series start, spun down the backstretch on lap 219 after getting loose under Shane Van Gisbergen. The caution was brought out and the 19 lead-lap cars came to pit road for, potentially, the final time of the day. Larson kept his lead, but Michael McDowell jumped 15 places as he only took two tyres.
Coming to 42 laps to, Larson led the field to green. Unexpectedly, McDowell did not fall down the order with his two-tyre strategy. Only a couple laps into the run, Kyle Busch in the #8 7-Eleven (yes, that is somewhat confusing) Chevy spun over the bumps in turns three and four. To the shock and disappointment of the FOX commentators, Kyle Busch was closer to victory lane than he has ever been this season. The #8 just barely missed Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s #47 as he avoided an impact.
Legacy Motor Club were having a great day today – by this point Erik Jones and John-Hunter Nemechek were sixth and seventh respectively.
With 33 laps to go, the pack resumed, led to green by Larson and McDowell. McDowell failed to get to the bottom of the track in turns one and two, leaving a space open for Blaney to gain the runner-up spot.
Preece, Hocevar and Cody Ware were caught up in a wreck on the back straight, bringing out the ninth caution of that day. It was a heartbreaker for Preece and Hocevar who had both ran exceptionally all day.
Surprisingly, Ryan Blaney took the inside line, tucking in behind Larson fore the restart, sacrificing clean air for potential track position. McDowell continued on the outside of Larson as they lined up for the restart with 23 laps to go.
McDowell cleared Larson and Blaney, leaving Larson and Reddick to fight it out. Larson dropped back, passed by both Penskes of Blaney and Logano. McDowell began to sail away – until Custer, Keselowski, Busch and Cindric get caught up on the back straight. Keselowski spun originally, with the others following as they checked up to avoid while side-by-side.
Race leader-elect McDowell took the inside line for the restart. Blaney took the outside and clean air. With 15 to go, they returned to green. McDowell held Blaney to his outside over the first lap, keeping Blaney barely behind when Tyler Reddick spun on the inside with contact from Daniel Suarez.
Blaney once again chose the outside for the following restart. They crossed the stripe to restart with just 10 laps to go. McDowell fought hard and eventually cleared Blaney into turns three and four – leaving the Penske duo of Logano and Blaney in second and third respectively. Ross Chastain found himself in fourth – an astronomical result if they can pull through.
Logano took small chunks of time from McDowell in the closing laps. With four to go, Logano dropped below the white line to pass McDowell and his ancient tyres. Logano found the lead and Blaney followed through- then suddenly, McDowell slammed into the outside wall exiting turn two.
With his car torn up, McDowell’s run for the race lead was over. His Spire Chevy loosened up in the wake of Ryan Blaney and smashed the wall. “We were giving it everything we had to keep track position, Joey got a run there, I tried to block it, I think I went as far as I could probably go. When Blaney slid up in front of me, it just took the air off of it, and I lost the back of it. I still had the fight in front me.”
Eight of the top 10 have not won this season. Five of those are out of the post-season Playoffs. With the pressure on, NASCAR Overtime was going to prove decisive.
Logano pulled away from Blaney while Chastain took over P2. The pack continued cleanly around the final lap until reigning Cup Series champion Joey Logano saw the chequered flag in first place.
Chastain, Blaney, Larson, Jones, Stenhouse, Austin Dillon, Nemechek, Bell and Suarez completed the top 10.
“I just slowly, methodically, couple at a time, we had a really tough pit stall situation, the pit crew did a good job managing that, and just grabbed a couple here and there. The car was fast – I knew that yesterday – just did a poor job in qualifying, just grinded it out. Kept grinding it, a couple here and a couple there and eventually got a win here. It’s nice to get one. Real nice!”
Logano joins Byron, Bell, Hamlin, Larson, Cindric and Berry in the post-season Playoffs as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to the second of three 1.5-mile ovals with Kansas next weekend.
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