Logano Wins at Richmond in 300th Career Start

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Joey Logano won the Toyota Owners 400 from Richmond International Speedway on Sunday afternoon.

Logano took the lead on the final restart, and he pulled away from Kyle Larson over the final 20 laps.  Logano said he was able to use his car’s short-run speed to get to victory lane.

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“We had a good enough restart to get enough cushion, but [Brad Keselowski] was catching me a couple tenths a lap there,” Logano said.  “We won with a car that may not have been the winning car.”

Logano was able to win in his 300th career start, and he said he was proud of his team for their hard work in getting him to victory for the first time in 2017.

“It’s nice to finally break through to get a win,” Logano said.  “I was driving my guts out.  Coming from the back…to bring this Shell-Pennzoil Ford into victory lane, man that feels really good.”

Logano’s teammate Keselowski had one of the fastest cars of the race, but a late-race restart trapped him behind a slower car.

“That last restart, there were about five or six cars that stayed out,” Keselowski said.  “We got behind one that was really slow and didn’t really go, and we lost two or three spots before we could get going.”

Keselowski said if the final run had been a bit longer he would have been able to catch Logano for the win.

“We had a ton of long-run speed,” Keselowski said.  “We weren’t good enough to pass cars on the short run, we just had to hold serve and go on the long run.  Just kept getting all those yellows at the end and couldn’t make anything of it.”

“What we needed was ten more laps; wish this was the Richmond 410.”

Unofficial results:

1. Joey Logano

2. Brad Keselowski

3. Denny Hamlin

4. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

5. Kevin Harvick

6. Jamie McMurray

7. Ryan Newman

8. Kurt Busch

9. Aric Almirola

10. Martin Truex Jr.

11. Jimmie Johnson

12. Daniel Suarez

13. Trevor Bayne

14. Kyle Larson

15. Clint Bowyer

16. Kyle Busch

17. Chris Buescher

18. Danica Patrick

19. David Ragan

20. Austin Dillon

21. Landon Cassill

22. Kasey Kahne

23. Matt Kenseth

24. Chase Elliott

25. Paul Menard

26. Ty Dillon

27. Cole Whitt

28. Matt DiBenedetto

29. Michael McDowell

30. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

31. Gray Gaulding

32. Corey LaJoie

33. Reed Sorenson

34. Timmy Hill

35. Jeffrey Earnhardt

36. Ryan Blaney

37. AJ Allmendinger

38. Erik Jones

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