NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Joey Logano went the final 110 laps without pitting and survived five overtimes to win Sunday’s Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway and clinch a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Logano was seemingly out of it, running 16th with two laps remaining, but when the caution came out it gave everybody in the field new life. Logano continued to climb through the field as accidents created multiple restarts and cars either started to run out of fuel or were forced to pit.
Logano crew chief Paul Wolfe gambled and kept his driver out until the very end and it worked as Logano was able to jump out on the fifth overtime restart and then hold off a hard-charging Tyler Reddick at the finish line. Logano, who led the final nine laps, had just enough fuel because the tank emptied in the middle of his post-race burnout.
The chaotic finish allowed a number of drivers to register good days, including Ryan Preece who was fourth, Chris Buescher fifth, Ryan Blaney sixth and Noah Gragson 10th.
Logano, who won the non-points All-Star Race in May, joins fellow Ford winners Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric and Blaney in the playoffs. It also continued a recent hot streak that has seen Ford win five of the last eight Cup Series events.
The NASCAR Cup Series continues next weekend at the Chicago Street Race on Sunday, July 7 (4:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NCS RACE TOP-10 FINISHERS
1st – Joey Logano
2nd – Zane Smith
3rd – Tyler Reddick
4th – Ryan Preece
5th – Chris Buescher
6th – Ryan Blaney
7th – Bubba Wallace
8th – Kyle Larson
9th – Daniel Hemric
10th – Noah Gragson
REMAINING FORD FINISHERS
13th – Justin Haley
15th – Austin Cindric
17th – Todd Gilliland
21st – Chase Briscoe
25th – Brad Keselowski
26th – Josh Berry
28th – Harrison Burton
35th – Michael McDowell
37th – Riley Herbst
38th – Chad Finchum
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW –
HOW DID YOU GET 110 LAPS ON ONE TANK OF FUEL?
“A lot of teamwork there. You have to give a lot of credit to our fueler, Nick Hensley, our engine department with Roush Yates building obviously some engines that could also manage fuel really well, and some guts – a lot of cajones made it happen.”
HOW EXCITED WERE YOU IN WINNING TODAY?
“It’s been a hard season and being on that cut line, I tell you it sucks. It’s just not fun. It’s hard and you just want a little bit of relief of the pressure and with seven weeks to go until the playoffs it gives us a chance to breathe for a second and start just kind of working on our car a little bit differently and just sleep better, to be honest with you. I’m proud of this team and proud to be here in Victory Lane, for sure.”
YOU HAVE THE GUITAR. ARE ONE OF THE KIDS GOING TO START TAKING LESSONS?
“I don’t think anyone in our family is musically inclined, but we’ve got a few cool guitars and that’s what it’s all about.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 4 Overstock.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“Today was a tough day. We just started off really tight and couldn’t figure out the balance, but my team worked hard to get me the car I needed and we finally found it after the rain delay. We got a bunch of spots back and had a much more competitive No. 4 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. It was just chaos there at the end. We tried to navigate all of those restarts and eventually just got caught up in it. It was a bummer that we didn’t finish that well this week in Nashville, my home race, but we learned a lot. Thank you Overstock for continuing to support our race team. We will retain and head to Chicago next week fully prepared to compete for a win.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“I was kind of the worst-case scenario the last 70 laps or so from a strategy standpoint with how it played out. We had to go back to 30th or something because of how the strategy panned out and the cautions fell and was able to drive back to 15th or so. There at the end, you don’t really expect to have three or four green-white-checkers, so we ran out of fuel taking the white flag. It definitely stinks whenever you're in contention there. I thought on the second-to-last one I had a good shot to potentially win the race and we finished 21st or something like that. It’s frustrating but that’s part of it.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“I’m proud of everybody on this BuildSubmarines.com Mustang and working hard to get back after it. It was definitely an up and down day and ended up with a decent finish, but we just had a strategy to have the fuel we needed there and it was caution after caution, so I’m definitely frustrated by all of that.”
YOU HAD A GOOD CAR.
“We definitely did. We had the ability to run in the top 10 all night and got stage points and got a decent finish out of it. I’m still just frustrated. It was just chaos there at the end. I have to go back and watch what happened with everything obviously, but we just didn’t get a chance to race very much. We were in a good spot there. We had good speed after the sun went down and had tires, so just really wanted some laps.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“It wasn’t very pretty, but another chaotic 10 or 15 laps there at the end and we salvaged a good day, so thank you to Stewart-Haas, Ford Performance and all of my supporters – Morton Buildings, Haas Tooling, United Rentals, RaceChoice.com, just everybody and Al Hankey Mohawk Northeast, just everybody. A day like today certainly helps a lot.”
YOU HAD A FAST CAR AND FINALLY GOT TRACK POSITION AT THE END.
“I’ll take it. It wasn’t pretty. Track position was a tough thing and we seemed to always be on the other side of it, but for once when it mattered we happened to be in the right spot.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s/Fleetguard Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“I just came off of turn four and I thought maybe something had broke in the driveshaft or something like that, but it was actually in the transaxle. Something broke and shot a hole through the side of the case. That’s not what we wanted. We were salvaging a pretty decent day, so that was unfortunate.”
RILEY HERBST, No. 15 Monster Energy Zero Sugar Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
IT LOOKED LIKE YOU AND LAJOIE WERE SIDE-BY-SIDE. WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR VIEW?
“I don’t know. It just felt like he was kind of over-racing me, but I had fun. It was a fun day. It was cool. I learned a lot.” HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER RUNNING A FULL RACE YESTERDAY AND NOW TODAY? “I’m tired, but I’m OK. It’s all right. It was fun. The Cup Series is a lot of hard work and a lot of fun.”
NASCAR XFINITY Series (June 29 – Nashville)
- Noah Gragson led a trio of three Ford drivers to top-10 finishes with a fifth-place run at Nashville.
- Riley Herbst finished sixth and Cole Custer was ninth.
- Custer was one of three drivers overall to lead the race, leading twice for 64 laps.
- Custer maintained his 15-point lead atop the standings with nine races left in the regular season.
- The Xfinity Series continues next week on the streets of Chicago with the race scheduled for Saturday, July 6 at 3:30 p.m. ET.
NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (June 28 – Nashville)
- Ben Rhodes led Ford with a seventh-place finish Friday night, marking his third straight top-10 run.
- ThorSport teammates Ty Majeski (9th) and Jake Garcia (10th) also finished in the top 10.
- Majeski continues to be Ford’s top driver in the point standings as he sits fourth.
- Rhodes (8th) is also in a playoff position with three races to go in the regular season.
- The Truck Series has next weekend off before returning to action at Pocono Raceway on Friday, July 12 at 5:30 p.m. ET.