Joey Logano Beats Kyle Busch in Overtime at Gateway
The first ever Cup race at World Wide Technology Raceway in St Louis was a home run. Today's race at the track formerly known as "Gateway" provided plenty of drama, great racing, and storylines that will carry over into next week.
Joey Logano loves to win inaugural races. He won the first ever Bristol dirt race last season. He won the first race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to start this season, and won the first Cup race at Gateway this afternoon in his No. 22 Ford Mustang. Logano had to battle Kyle Busch in overtime to secure the victory.
Logano ironically led 22 of the 245 laps today, on the way to his second win of the season and the 29th of his Cup career. He becomes the fourth driver with multiple wins this season, joining Ross Chastain, William Byron and Denny Hamlin.
"It doesn’t get much better than that," Logano exclaimed. "Racing for the lead like that with Kyle was a lot of fun, crossing each other back and forth. I knew it was coming. If I did it to him, I knew he would do it to me. We crossed back and forth there a couple times in the last lap. It’s nice to get a few wins on the season here and start collecting those playoff points."
"What a great car, though. Really fast. I kind of messed up in qualifying, and Paul Wolfe made a great call putting two tires on. Blaney did a great job with the push down in Turn 1, which kept me close at least and being able to make the move. He did a good teammate move there and then being able to push me and give Team Penske a chance to win the race. It was a lot of fun to race here, and looking forward to coming back."
Busch held on for another runner-up finish, just 0.655 seconds behind Logano at the finish line. His brother Kurt finished just behind him in 3rd to lead the way for 23XI Racing once again. Logano's teammate Ryan Blaney won the opening stage of the race and recovered from a spin to finish 4th. Aric Almirola rounded out the top-five on Sunday, in his No. 10 Ford Mustang.
Ford and Toyota were clearly the two dominant manufacturers this weekend, and it all came down to the final restart. Kyle was able to nudge ahead when the final green flag waved, but Logano was able to get back underneath him in the next turn, and pulled away for the victory.
"My car was better on the outside, but it took a few laps for it to get rolling up," Busch said. "Cold tires, firing off on that restart, didn’t have the help behind me. Got into turn one by myself and was too far back. When you are the guy on the inside, you just flush the guy on the outside, and it’s over. I got a crossover, though, but threw it into Turn 3 too far. It chattered all four tires. Just didn’t have any grip to get off the corner well enough to be on his outside. The guys did a good job to improve, and it’s something to work off of."
Martin Truex Jr finished 6th in his 600th career Cup start. Erik Jones had a solid afternoon and finished 7th, with Chastain coming home in 8th place. Christopher Bell put another Toyota inside the top-ten and AJ Allmendinger also scored a top-ten finish after starting in 35th. Allmendinger capped his sensational weekend today after winning the Xfinity race yesterday in Portland.
The major storyline from today's race was the driving of Chastain. The Trackhouse Racing driver had several run ins with other drivers today, some of which occurred multiple times. The first incident came with Hamlin, when he bumped the rear of the No. 11 Toyota on Lap 64. That hit put Hamlin into the wall, severely damaging the right side of his car.
Hamlin responded on at least two occasions when he got back on track, pushing Chastain to the edge of the grass on the backstretch. The veteran was not pleased with how it all unfolded. "The unfortunate part is it didn’t look like he got too shy after that first one, because I believe he hit Elliott after that one. We all have learned the hard way, and we’ve all had to have it come back around on us and it’ll be no different."
"It’s good he takes responsibility," Hamlin continued. "But ultimately, it ruined our day. I think we were kind of racing hard there for a while with him on the inside, and he tried to keep sliding up in front of us and wasn’t able to because I wasn’t willing to just back off and let him slide up in front. It didn’t take long after he tucked in behind us that he wrecked us."
The next instance came on Lap 101 when Chastain tapped the left-rear of Chase Elliott in Turn 4 in a three-wide situation. Elliott spun across the track and collected a spinning Bubba Wallace and Harrison Burton. On the following restart, the driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet showed his displeasure and pushed Chastain up the track in Turn 2. Hamlin got in another jab as well, sideswiping Ross as he drove past.
Things didn't end after that, either. Chastain and Elliott collided once more in Turn 1, with Chase sliding into the No. 78 Ford of BJ McLeod. When the dust settled, Elliott finished 21st and Hamlin 34th. After the race, Chastain took the blame for all of the incidents.
"It’s unacceptable," Chastain said of his driving today. "It’s completely unacceptable that I did that. For Hamlin, Elliott, McDowell; so many guys. I just was way off on my driving today and running into people is not acceptable at this level. I cannot believe, standing here right now, that I just made so many mistakes back-to-back. It’s one thing for one, but I absolutely drove over my head today."
"I overdrove Turn 3 and slid my left front getting into the corner," Chastain said. "That’s not an excuse by any means. I just completely blew the corner and then I got in the middle of three wide, and I should not have been there. That’s just terrible driving on my part. I should not be in this car if I’m going to do that."
It was a day to forget for Kevin Harvick, who had a massive hit with the outside wall when a mechanical failure on his No. 4 Ford ended his run. After earning his first career Cup pole yesterday, Harvick's teammate Chase Briscoe led the opening 27 laps but a flat left-rear tire sent him to the back of the pack. He was unable to make his way back to the front and finished 24th. It was also a brutal day for the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization, who finished 12th, 13th, 19th, and 21st.
Zane Smith made his Cup debut with RFK Racing as Chris Buescher tested positive for COVID-19 last week. It was a successful day for the full-time Truck series driver, finishing 17th after being spun on pit road by Michael McDowell in the first stage of the race.
Another challenging track awaits the Cup Series next weekend. Coverage for Sunday’s Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway begins at 4 PM ET on FS1.
