Joey Logano celebrates his second career Sprint Cup Series victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday (Photo: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR)
LOUDON, N.H. – It was the home track makeup Joey Logano has been searching for five years.
As a rookie in 2009 with Joe Gibbs Racing, Logano won his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Though it was a day where the ultimate of lucky breaks got Logano to victory lane. When rains came most of the top contenders in the event were forced to pit for fuel. Logano, who had wrecked not long before the rain came and had plenty of fuel, essentially stole the victory when NASCAR made the decision to cut the event short because of weather.
Sunday Logano finally got that home track victory by being the class of the field.
Logano, a Middletown native, drove away from the field on a green-white-checkered restart to win the Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
“This is my home race track, this is the coolest place to win for me,” Logano said. “I could never pick a better racetrack to win. I watched my first [Sprint] Cup here when I was five and I won that other [Sprint] Cup race here. I just felt like I had to win one the right way here. This means so much.”
It was the fourth victory of the season for Logano, who is in his second season driving for Penske Racing. The victory also guaranteed Logano a spot as one of the 12 drivers advancing to the second round of the Chase for the Championship.
It means both Penske Racing cars are guaranteed spots in the second round of the Chase. Logano’s teammate, Brad Keselowski, won the Chase opening event last week at Chicagoland Speedway.
Joey Logano salutes fans at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after winning Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 (Photo: Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)
“We’re doing what we’ve got to do to win this thing right now. I’m proud of that,” Logano said. “… It feels great to go on to the next [round]. We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing though. We’ve got to keep our eye on the prize and think about the big trophy at the end.”
It was the seventh career Sprint Cup Series victory for Logano. Rookie Kyle Larson was second and Kevin Harvick third.
Logano came into the event third in the standings. The new 10-chase Chase format introduced this year will see the 16-car field running for the championship cut to 12 after three races, then cut to eight after six races then after nine races the field will be cut to four drivers who will compete for the title the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The driver finishing best at Homestead-Miami will be crowned the series champion.
“Our goal coming into the race is to get to the next round,” Logano said. “We have to get to the next round to win the championship. That’s our ultimate goal, to win the championship. We had to get through this day the best we could.”
Logano, who led 73 laps on the day, wrestled the lead away from Harvick on a restart with 27 laps to go and then held that lead through two late restarts, including a green-white-checkered finale that extended the race to 303 laps.
Harvick, who led a race-high 104 laps, wasn’t pleased with the way NASCAR officiated the event. He felt officials were letting Logano go earlier on restarts than he should have been allowed.
“We had a fast car,” Harvick said. “Track position is tough and it wound up being really hard racing there. … And then at the end there, NASCAR must not be able to see the lines on the restart there and [Logano] was way early all day. But all in all, we did what we had to do and I just enjoyed racing that hard.”
Keselowsi, the pole-sitter, led 78 laps and finished seventh.
While Keselowski, Logano and Harvick will go to the third Chase race at Dover International Speedway next week as the top-three in the standings respectively, Loudon proved a tough place to visit for a number of drivers in the championship contending field. Chase drivers Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and Jeff Gordon all had mechanical issues or were involved in wrecks during the event.
Hamlin, had the toughest day, dropping seven spots in the standings to 13th, putting him on the edge of elimination if he can’t move up a position in the standings or win at Dover. Hamlin’s car had fueling issues early in the event and then he was involved in a crash that relegated him to a 37th place finish.
“It’s so frustrating because you know on performance you deserve to move on,” Hamlin said. “We would have a great shot to move on and really make some noise here in these last eight races. In this three race section, you just can’t have one bad week. Not right now. And, so you’ve got to be flawless — you’ve got to be at your best these last 10.”
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