Logano ‘steals win’ by staying focused
Joey Logano smiled as if he’d stolen something and gotten away with it.
And that wasn’t far from the truth.
Logano passed distracted and dominant Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski on one restart and then pulled away on another with about 20 laps to go to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway on Sunday. “We were just fast enough to break through and kind of steal a win,” Logano said. “We had a decent car. We were in the lead when the caution came out there and we looked like we were in pretty good shape, and then, obviously, to have the good pit stops and all that, I don’t know if you’d call that stealing. We didn’t get lucky. We were able to just do what we know how to do.”
Logano grabbed the lead when Keselowski had to make a defensive move to keep Kyle Busch from passing him on the inside. His 18th career victory came in his 300th career start.
“I was driving my guts out out there,” Logano said in Victory Lane. “That’s all I had. We won with a car that may not have been a winning car, so that’s something to be very proud of as a team. That means the execution was there and we were able to put ourselves in position to race there hard at the end. Brad was the fastest car. He was so fast.”
Keselowski got stuck behind some slower cars on the final restart, letting Logano pull away by nearly 2 seconds.
“I think what we needed was about 10 more laps,” Keselowski said. He led six times for 110 laps.
On the final restart, Logano had to get around Kyle Larson and five others who stayed on the track when everyone else pitted. He made quick work of that challenge and pulled away while Keselowski and Denny Hamlin got caught in traffic dueling for the second position.
Keselowski, who had the dominant car for the second half of the race, held on for second, followed by Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kevin Harvick. Dale Earnhardt Jr., in his first race since announcing he will retire at the end of the season, finished 30th.
NHRA: Steve Torrence won the Top Fuel event in the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, North Carolina. Torrence had a 3.783-second pass at 323.89 mph for the ninth victory of his career and first of the season. He beat points leader Leah Pritchett, eight-time season champion Tony Schumacher and Terry McMillen in the final round. Ron Capps won in Funny Car, Chris McGaha in Pro Stock and LE Tonglet in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
ARCA: Dalton Sargeant lapped the entire field in a dominating victory in the ARCA Racing Series event at Salem Speedway in Indiana. Sargeant rallied to get back on the lead lap on the high-banked 0.555-mile oval, then pulled away for his second career victory in the stock-car series. He became the first ARCA winner to lap the field since David Stremme in 2006 at Michigan International Speedway.
Formula 1: Valtteri Bottas kept his cool under pressure in the Russian Grand Prix to claim his first F1 victory, swooping past Sebastian Vettel for the lead on the first lap, and keeping the hard-charging German behind him on the final lap.