Joey Logano has become accustomed to winning in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. However, on this day at Talladega Superspeedway, he had to work for it in order to conquer the Winn Dixie 300.
Logano led 40 laps on the afternoon, which was the most of all drivers. The driver had to earn his money on this day as there were 11 different leaders and 23 lead changes. But for Logano, it is his second-career win at the 2.66 mile track.
“That was crazy,” Logano said while debriefing in Victory Lane. “Tad Boyd, my spotter was on it. We spent a lot of time before Daytona to figure out these superspeedways and we watched more footage before we came down here. We just wanted to try and figure out the differences between Talladega and Daytona. It’s such a combination between the old school draft and the cars hooking up and bumping.”
The race was action packed from the beginning. On Lap 2, Elliott Sadler made contact with Roush Fenway Racing teammate Bubba Wallace while battling side-by-side for the lead. Sadler cut down in front of the No. 6 and evidently Sadler went for a spin in front of the entire field. The No. 62 of Brendan Gaughan and the No. 19 of Mike Bliss could not avoid each other as they tried to slow down to miss the spinning Ford.
When the race went back to green the action was relatively tame from Lap 10 until Lap 36. Ty Dillon led these 26 laps which were the only laps he led on the day.
On Lap 36, the majority of the field darted off to pit road. Dillon couldn’t slow his car up enough to the minimum speed of 55mph. The driver was black flagged.
What saved Dillon was a misfortune for Chase Elliott. The No. 9 Chevrolet blew a right front tire out of Turn 2, on Lap 39. During the green flag pit stops Elliott locked up his right front tire while coming into the pits. Then the team only took left side tires on the stop.
“Our plan was to take left and we flatted spotted the right coming in and a few laps latter off she went,” Elliott said to FOX Sports in the garage area. “I hate it. I would say that its pretty well done.”
Elliott finished 37th on the afternoon.
The race went through a stage where it was fairly tame until the next round of green flag pit stops on Lap 73. The “big one” occurred when Aric Almirola made a bold move to try and pit from the outside lane when Ryan Sieg got into the rear of rookie Daniel Suarez and turned the Toyota in front of the entire field.
The other drivers caught up in this crash were the aforementioned Gaughan, Dillon, Joey Gase, Ryan Reed, Chad Boat, Harrison Rhodes, Kenny Wallace, and John Wes Townley.
“People act like they’re not going to wave,” Gaughan said in disbelief of what just happened. “Talladega is easy to get on-and-off of pit road. Just get out of the way. When people try to come from the outside, chaos happens.”
The scary part of the accident was when Gaughan’s car slid down pit lane and hit the pit wall right in front of Almiola’s pit-stall. There were two injuries reported on the No. 98 team. One was sent to the infield care center, while the other was transported to a local hospital.
Lap 98 was the last incident of the day. It occurred when the 84 of the aforementioned Boat got turned by Dillon. Kasey Kahne, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Blake Koch were also involved in the crash.
There was an eight lap shootout to determine the race winner. Logano managed to hold-off the field while making his car as-wide-as possible on the last lap.
“It seemed like the Fords had a little more speed than us, but I’m really proud of the effort,” said Brian Scott in describing how he came from sixth to second on the last corner of the race. “I wanted it so bad. The top-four broke away and I couldn’t quite get there. Off of Turn 4, I got a huge run when they got separated and I got a good shove and finished second.”
The rest of the top five consisted of polesitter, Austin Dillon. J.J. Yeley came home in the fourth position, the best he has finished in years. And Joey Gase rounded out the top-five in what was his best career finish.
However, it was Logano who tamed Talladega on this afternoon. This is Logano’s second NASCAR XFINITY Series win in 2015 as he led wire-to-wire two weeks ago in Bristol.
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