FORT WORTH, Texas — Reigning NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano overcame a lot to finally get his first victory this season.
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 the two smoothed out during the week. Oh, and he started 27th at Texas after a bad qualifying effort on the 1.5-mile track.
But Logano surged ahead on the restart in overtime Sunday to win in the 11th race this year. He led only seven of the 271 laps, four more than scheduled.
“After what happened last week, to be able to rebound and come right back, it’s a total ‘22’ way of doing things. So proud of the team,” Logano said.
On the final restart after the 12th caution, Logano was on the inside of his other teammate, Ryan Blaney. But Logano pulled away on the backstretch and stayed easily in front the final 1½ laps, while Ross Chastain then passed Blaney to finish second ahead of him.
“Just slowly, methodically,” Logano said of his progression to the front. “Just kept grinding, a couple here and a couple there and eventually get a win here.”
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.
“I mean there’s always a story next week, right,” Logano said. “So I told my wife last week before we left, I said watch me go win this one. It’s just how we do stuff.”
On a caution with 47 laps left, McDowell took only two tires and moved up 15 spots to second. He ended up leading 19 laps, but got loose a few laps after getting passed by Logano and crashed to bring out the caution that sent the race to overtime. He finished 26th.
“We were giving it everything we had there to try to keep track position,” McDowell said. “Joey got a run there, and I tried to block it. I went as far as I think you could probably go. When Blaney slid in front of me, it just took the air off of it and I just lost the back of it. I still had the fight in me, but I probably should have conceded at that point.”
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.
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.
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.
Notes: William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott remained the top four in season points. … Elliott left Texas last spring with his first victory after 42 races and 18 months without one. He hasn’t won since, and now he 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.
