Sunday, March 8, 2020

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.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images
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

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

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