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Joey Logano Overcomes Pit Road Issues At Phoenix Raceway To Win In Overtime

by Camille Jones March 8, 2020 0 comments

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Joey Logano claimed his second victory of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season after winning Sunday’s FanShield 500 at Phoenix Raceway in NASCAR Overtime.

On the final restart of the race in NASCAR Overtime, Logano surged forward and away from Kevin Harvick to earn his 25^th win in the NASCAR Cup Series. Despite an uncontrolled tire penalty and a broken jack, Logano led 60 laps throughout the race en route to his second victory at Phoenix Raceway. With the win, Logano becomes the first driver this season to win multiple races.

“Man, we had a really good car, really good Shell‑Pennzoil Mustang,” said Logano. “We had more things go wrong today. Unfortunate situation with the jack brake. No one’s fault. Had some good restarts, get ourselves back up there, being aggressive, having some tires there towards the end.  I knew racing Kevin was going to be hard. I was figuring I was going to get hit, so I throttled up in the corner so much, I thought he was going to give me the bump‑n‑run, which I expected, wouldn’t blame him for. I’m out of breath. That was a pretty intense last 30 minutes or hour of the race. A lot going on. Couldn’t be more proud of this team. Two wins already in the books. We got to keep this thing rocking.”

Logano’s second win comes in only the fourth race of the season, moving him to second in the Championship points standings, only one point behind Harvick.

Harvick finished in second on Sunday, battling hard in the closing laps. Harvick started the race in second, won Stage 1 and led 67 laps.

“He just had control of the race,” said Harvick on Logano’s win. “After we pitted there, I got stuck behind a couple of cars there, lost five or six spots.  He got by and got control of the race.  He got to restart where he wanted to. Our Jimmy John’s Ford was better, especially when we could put it in front of his.  We just didn’t get the control of the race back there, and he was able to get by us on that restart where I got hung up.”

Kyle Busch earned the third-place finish in the race, his 22nd top-10 finish in 30 races at Phoenix Raceway.

“I don’t know,” Busch said. “Just really want to thank my guys. We unloaded and we weren’t very good. I didn’t think, I wasn’t too optimistic for the race and rightfully so. I think we probably had a sixth or seventh place car, but we had a lot of strategy there at the end with tires and all that sort of stuff – good restarts and being able to make time up on the bottom. Once you get that close to the front, you can’t make up that time anymore so that’s kind of where we lost our ground there.”

Kyle Larson and Clint Bowyer finished rounded out the top-five on Sunday, followed by Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Aric Almirola, Cole Custer and William Byron.

Elliott led the most laps in the race, holding onto the top spot for 93 laps. There were seven leaders with a total of 20 lead changes in the race.

There was an abundance of cautions in the event, with 12 caution periods totaling over 73 laps. With the spacious apron to dive low on restarts, drivers went three and four wide to make big moves, resulting in even more wrecks from aggressive restarts.

The NASCAR Cup Series returns to the Southeast next weekend for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Live coverage will be found at 2 p.m. ET on FOX and the Performance Racing Network (PRN).

Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images