Logano Wins in Phoenix

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Joey Logano won the FanShield 500 from Phoenix Raceway on Sunday afternoon after surviving multiple late restarts.

Logano had an eventful day that included a pit road penalty halfway through the race that forced him to work his way back through the field.  After getting to the lead, he was able to hold off challenges from Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch in the closing laps.

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Logano said his car was strong enough to overcome the pit miscues early in the race.

“Boy, we had more things go wrong today,” Logano said.  “Unfortunate situation with the jack breaking...just had some good restarts to get ourselves back up there.  We had a really good car.”

Logano held off Harvick over two late-race restarts.  Harvick, who has been a consistent front-runner at Phoenix, was unable to get close enough to Logano in the closing laps to make a winning move.

Logano said he changed his driving style because he was expecting contact from Harvick.

“I knew racing Kevin was going to be hard there; figured I was going to get hit,” Logano said.  “I thought he was going to give me the bump-and-run, which I would expect and wouldn’t blame him for.”

Harvick said once he lost the lead he wasn’t able to control the race how he would have liked.

“[Logano] just had control of the race,” Harvick said.  “After we pitted there, we got stuck behind a couple cars and lost five or six spots.  He got by and got control of the race.”

“Our Jimmy John’s Ford was better…we just didn’t get the control of the race and he was able to get by us on that restart where I got hung up.”

Unofficial results:

1. Joey Logano

2. Kevin Harvick

3. Kyle Busch

4. Kyle Larson

5. Clint Bowyer

6. Kurt Busch

7. Chase Elliott

8. Aric Almirola

9. Cole Custer

10. William Byron

11. Brad Keselowski

12. Jimmie Johnson

13. Matt DiBenedetto

14. Alex Bowman

15. Ty Dillon

16. Michael McDowell

17. Chris Buescher

18. Ryan Preece

19. Bubba Wallace

20. Denny Hamlin

21. Daniel Suarez

22. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

23. Ross Chastain

24. Christopher Bell

25. John Hunter Nemechek

26. JJ Yeley

27. Corey LaJoie

28. Erik Jones

29. Joey Gase

30. Reed Sorenson

31. Brennan Poole

32. Martin Truex Jr.

33. Tyler Reddick

34. Quin Houff

35. Garrett Smithley

36. Austin Dillon

37. Ryan Blaney

38. Timmy Hill

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