CONCORD, N.C. — Audio and recap by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Sean Gardner/Getty Images North America photo —
Joey Logano found his golden ticket to the Eliminator Round after a shining performance Sunday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The Bank of America 500 may have been delayed by rain, but the run by the No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Fusion was worth the wait as Logano led 227 of the 334 laps in scoring his 12th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory and becoming the first driver to advance to the third bracket of the Chase Grid.
The performance marked a number of records for the Middletown, Conn. young gun — it was his first victory at CMS, marked his first time taking over the points lead in this year’s Chase and the number of laps led were the most Logano has led in a single race in his Sprint Cup career.
“We just had a great car today,” Logano smiled. “Any time you have a car like that, you just hope that nothing goes wrong (laughs). It’s not often you have a perfect day in racing — normally in a 500-mile race you have to overcome something — but today everything went according to plan and we ended up in victory lane.”
“You always want to win here. Charlotte is everybody’s home turf and you want to make it happen here. We led a ton of laps — that always feels good — but we were trying something different and Todd (Gordon, crew chief) did a great job. We’ve struggled here the last three or four years and this week we obviously made some good changes to our race car and had a very fast race car. It basically let me be like a catfish — I stayed on the bottom all day (laughs).”
With a secured berth in the round of eight, Logano also added that this win takes the weight off his and his team’s shoulders heading into the rest of a Contender Round that includes the wild-card of Talladega Superspeedway at its peak.
“This makes Talladega way easier. That’s always on everybody’s mind when this round starts. Last year we won Kansas when it was the first race of this round and now we did the same thing today at Charlotte. We’ll get a lot more sleep than everyone else the next few weeks, I know that much.”
Polesitter Matt Kenseth led the field away from the initial green flag, but it was his teammate Kyle Busch who snuck the lead out by a fender on the opening lap — when the first caution of the day flew for debris on the frontstretch after a stackup that collected Jeb Burton in the process. On the restart four laps later however, Kenseth blasted back by on the top side and led all the way to the competition caution at lap 25, set up after heavy rains on Saturday washed all the rubber off the race track.
Pit stops did not shuffle the running order up front and Kenseth again pulled away on the ensuing restart — in fact, it was not until lap 61 that the field even had a shot to get close to him, when the third caution of the day came over the track. The incident saw Kasey Kahne lose a right front tire violently and pound the turn two wall, saying that he “was just going back [to] wide-open throttle and [the tire] popped.”
“It all happened at once,” Kahne added. “Obviously we’re doing something wrong to have two tire failures like that. I don’t know what happened. We had no issues in practice or anything like that [before the race]. This car was really fast today. It’s discouraging, but that’s the way it goes some days.”
Goodyear later confirmed the tire failure was the result of a fender rubbing on the tread area, and Kahne’s car was officially retired from the race. He would be scored 43rd at the finish.
Kenseth would hold the lead through the next green flag run, when problems for Chaser Dale Earnhardt Jr. erupted on lap 75. After contact with Carl Edwards ran him up to the wall a few laps prior, a flat tire put the No. 88 in the fence in turn one with significant damage to draw the fourth yellow of the day. Junior would lose a lap in making repairs, but be able to continue, while Joey Logano stayed out to assume the lead during the cycle of pit stops that took place on lap 77.
The Team Penske driver would then control a large green-flag stint that characterized the middle portion of the event, as he would lead until his scheduled green flag pit stop at lap 122. As he, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson (who led two laps before pitting) all ducked off-track to receive service, young sophomore driver Kyle Larson leaped to the point in the Target Chevrolet. Larson, who charged up 11 spots in just three circuits after the lap 81 restart and showed inpressive speed over the long haul, would lead a handful of laps before completing the cycle and handing the top spot back to Logano with 128 laps complete.
Logano’s lead would not be questioned before the caution flew at the halfway point of the race, debris on the backstretch being the culprit. He would again hold the lead off pit road, and a trio of subsequent cautions — at lap 177 after Kenseth tagged the wall, and laps 182 and 194 for fluid from the No. 51 of Justin Allgaier — severely slowed the pace and reset the deck at the front of the field.
A problem the next lap, involving Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch, damaged the then-second and third place running cars at the entrance of pit road. Larson tried to make a late commitment to pit while Busch made a last second move to stay out — damaging the left rear of the No. 42 and the right front of the No. 18 in the process. Both drivers were able to continue, but their chances to win were over at that point.
As the race wore on, it was clear that Logano’s No. 22 was the car to beat in the heat of the day, even through another round of green flag pit stops that started at lap 231. Just after that cycle, more trouble broke out for Kenseth’s Toyota. He popped the wall on lap 240, causing terminal damage to his machine and putting his playoff hopes in serious jeopardy.
“These aren’t the kind of days you want to have, for sure,” Kenseth said. “It was just one of those days. We were real fast out front and real tight in traffic. Didn’t catch the cautions right. I overshot my pit on that one cycle of stops and that put us in the back. We never should have been there to begin with. Today was about my mistakes, they cost us. We’ll just move on from this and get ready for Kansas I’m just as confident as I was this morning that we can go out and get it done.”
Kenseth wasn’t the only big name to have issues in the final third of the race, as Jimmie Johnson — eliminated from the Chase a week prior in Dover — fell victim to an oil pump issue and retired on lap 257 after running in the top three for almost the entirety of the event.
“We had something [go sour] with the oil pump and lost oil pressure, and the engine shut itself off and went into protection mode at that point. That’s unfortunate, because we had a great car. We ran in the top three or four most of the day and I really wanted to get this Red Vest car to victory lane. You just can’t control these mechanical failures and that’s what knocked us out today.”
None of those problems were of any consequence to Logano, however. As the race remained green, he continued to set a blistering pace over second-running Kevin Harvick, taking the lead for the final time at lap 300 from Sam Hornish Jr. as Hornish concluded the final cycle of green flag pit stops and ultimately holding off Harvick for the win by 0.704 seconds.
The reigning champion, who finished second, was held up briefly by teammate Danica Patrick exiting pit road after his final stop — a difference that kept him from getting around the No. 22 and into clean air. While Harvick didn’t comment on that particular incident after the race, he did elaborate on the fact that his car “felt off” for much of Sunday’s affair.
“Overall I thought things went well,” Harvick said. “The guys did a great job on pit road and we were able to capitalize on their solid day to gain track position. We could hang with Joey, but I would end up losing him in traffic because it was just so hard to pass. All in all, we weren’t really very good all weekend and the whole crew just kept making our car better and better as the day went on, so I’m proud of that.”
“If days like this are the off days, we’ll be just fine.”
Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Kurt Busch finished in positions three through five, followed by Carl Edwards in sixth — giving Chase drivers full reign of the top half dozen positions.
Friday night’s XFINITY winner, Austin Dillon, was the best non-Chaser in seventh ahead of Jeff Gordon, who came home eighth in his final start (#JeffsLastRide) at CMS.
“The day race helped us a lot with starting 22nd,” Gordon said after the race. “At night it’s so grippy and fast it’s hard to get multiple grooves, while in the daytime — with the sun being out and heating up the track — it loses a lot of grip and I think it helped us. [The groove] moved around enough to where we could maneuver through some traffic and work our way up there; a little bit on the track and a little bit more on pit road. I thought we had a heck of a crowd today for a rain-delayed race — that made me smile and you’ve got to be happy about that.”
The Fords of Brad Keselowski and Aric Almirola rounded out the top 10 at the checkered flag.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to action on Sunday, Oct. 18 for the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. Logano is the defending winner of the race, which was run a week earlier in 2014.
Audio with race winner Joey Logano:
Audio with winning crew chief Todd Gordon:
Audio with winning car owner Roger Penske:
RESULTS: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series; Bank of America 500; Charlotte Motor Speedway; October 11, 2015
- Joey Logano
- Kevin Harvick
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Denny Hamlin
- Kurt Busch
- Carl Edwards
- Austin Dillon
- Jeff Gordon
- Brad Keselowski
- Aric Almirola
- Clint Bowyer
- Jamie McMurray
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Ryan Blaney
- Ryan Newman
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Sam Hornish Jr.
- Casey Mears
- Danica Patrick
- Kyle Busch
- Kyle Larson
- Trevor Bayne
- Landon Cassill
- Greg Biffle
- Michael Annett
- Tony Stewart
- David Gilliland
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Brett Moffitt
- Michael McDowell
- Alex Bowman
- J.J. Yeley
- Alex Kennedy
- Reed Sorenson
- Paul Menard
- David Ragan
- Cole Whitt
- Jimmie Johnson
- Justin Allgaier
- Jeb Burton
- Matt Kenseth
- Kasey Kahne
About the Writer
Jacob Seelman is the Managing Editor of Race Chaser Online and creator of the Motorsports Madness radio show, airing at 7 p.m. Eastern every Monday on the Performance Motorsports Network. Seelman grew up in the sport, watching his grandparents co-own the RaDiUs Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series team in the 1990s.
The 21-year-old is currently studying Broadcast Journalism at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., and is also serving as the full-time tour announcer for both the United Sprint Car Series and the Must See Racing Sprint Car Series.
Email Jacob at: [email protected]
Follow on Twitter: @Speed77Radio or @JacobSeelman77
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