Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano gets 1st win this season in overtime at Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Joey Logano stayed in front on a restart in overtime at Texas on Sunday to get his first victory this season.
Logano led only seven of the 271 laps, four more than scheduled at the 1 1/2-mile track. He had started 27th in the 11th race this year.
It came a week after Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric's win at Talladega, where Logano had a fifth-place finish that became 39th after a postrace inspection found an issue with the spoiler on his No. 22 Ford. There was also Logano's expletive-laden rant on the radio toward his teammate in the middle of that race that the two smoothed out during the week.
On the final restart after the 12th caution, Logano was on the inside of his other teammate, Ryan Blaney, but surged ahead going on the backstretch and stayed easily in front the final 1 1/2 laps. Ross Chastain then passed Blaney to finish second ahead of him.
Logano got his 37th career victory, getting the lead for the first time on lap 264. He went low to complete a pass of Michael McDowell, who on a caution with 47 laps left took only two tires and moved up 15 spots to second.
McDowell got loose a few laps after that being passed by Logano and crashed to bring out the caution that sent the race to overtime. He finished 26th.
Odds and Ends
Chase Elliott left Texas last spring with his first victory after 42 races and 18 months without one. He hasn't won since, and now has another long winless drought — this one 38 races and now nearly 13 months after finishing 16th. … A crew member for Christopher Bell crawled in through the passenger side of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and was fully in the car to reconnect an air hose the driver's helmet during a caution in the second stage. It took two stops during that caution, and twice climbing into the car, to resolve the issue.
Fiery end to Hamlin streak
Denny Hamlin had finished on the lead lap in 21 consecutive races, but a fiery finish on lap 75 ended that streak that had matched the eighth-longest in NASCAR history. He was the first car out of the race.
After the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota lost power, something blew up when Hamlin recycled the engine. There were flames coming out from under the car and it was engulfed in smoke by time it rolled to a stop on the inside of the track and Hamlin climbed out unharmed.
Youngest polesitter
Carson Hocevar, the 22-year-old driver who is McDowell's teammate with Spire Motorsports, was the youngest polesitter ever in Texas. He led only the first 22 laps of the race, losing it while pitting during the first caution. He finished 24th after a late accident.
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Stage cautions
Both in-race stages finished under caution. Cindric won Stage 1 after Hamlin's issues and Kyle Larson took the second after a yellow flag came out because of debris on the track after the right rear tire on Chris Buescher's car came apart.
Larson got his 68th overall stage win and his sixth at Texas, with both marks being records. He has won a stage in each of the last five Cup races at Texas, starting in his 2021 win there.
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