TALLADEGA — The wins have been few and far between as of late for Joey Logano, one of NASCAR’s premier drivers, but he ended that 36-race winless streak at the Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday.
After the “big one” crash late in the race on lap 166, the field settled down and coalesced into a single-file pack with Logano, driver of the Shell Pennzoil/Autotrader Ford, leading the way to the end.
“Man, it was crazy,” he said. “Such a powerful team, powerful car — got everything working really well today. It feels so good to be back in victory lane.”
Logano did not have the benefit of his teammates Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney to draft with him in the race’s closing stages, but there were two other Fords driven by Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch lined up behind him, which worked to his advantage. Although that group of Fords ultimately got split up, it wasn’t enough to thwart Logano’s charge to victory.
“There at the end, you work together as much as you can,” he added. “You just want to make sure a Ford wins, and you hope it’s you. But you try to do the right thing as well. I had some Stewart-Haas [Ford] cars behind me, which aren’t necessarily teammates. But with the Ford Performance relationship, it’s the closest thing I’m ever going to have to it. I was thankful to have them behind me. I was wondering what kind of fight they were going to put on at the end, but they go split up and that kind of changed the complexion of the race.”
Raise the roof ?@joeylogano | #GEICO500 pic.twitter.com/VoaK7GOnv7
— Talladega Superspeedway (@TalladegaSuperS) April 29, 2018
Second-place finisher Kurt Busch posted his fourth top-10 finish of the season and his 19th top-10 in his 35th start at the Talladega Superspeedway in the Monster Energy Cup Series.
Busch lamented finishing second but applauded Logano for winning in a Ford.
“I’m happy that a Ford won,” Busch said. “It wasn’t the right one. Kevin [Harvick] was in good position, and I was going to roll with him in any direction that I could. We just got broken up by [Ricky] Stenhouse. But man, it was just so close. You wish you could go over and do it again, and I feel like I left that one out on the table.
Fan favorite Chase Elliott finished third, his second top-10 finish in his first five races at the track. Although he didn’t have the fastest car throughout the race, he was able to make a late-race push.
“It was definitely interesting last few laps,” Elliott said. “I was really trying to make a run and do something there at the end. Those guys were being very patient with each other. I was surprised. It was more than obvious they were not going to help me move forward.”
Winning crew chief Todd Gordon acknowledged his team’s recent struggles but said the Talladega victory provided an opportunity for momentum.
“It’s a great momentum-builder,” Gordon said. “As the season has gone on, we’ve worked on trying to make ourselves better. We struggled through the year last year, and I think everybody dug in through offseason to try to figure out where we needed to go.”
Legendary car owner Roger Penske said his team’s win was a reflection of its superspeedway effort and commented on what winning at Talladega meant to him personally.
“I just have to say, it was a perfect day and one we needed,” Penske said. “We’ve been hanging around the top five for most of the season, except right there at Daytona. So, it shows we’ve got our big track game together. We got to do some more work to get where we need to be.”
“I want to thank the fans here at Talladega,” he added. “We’ve had some good luck down here. I remember racing here with Rusty [Wallace] and Bobby Allison. So, a lot of memories here for me.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
