Logano Wins at Bristol as Cup Series Returns to Dirt

 Originally written for CLNS Media.

Joey Logano won the Food City Dirt Race from the Bristol Motor Speedway on Monday afternoon.

Logano took the lead in the second stage and held on over the final stage to win the first dirt race for the Cup Series in over 50 years.

Logano said he’s put in a lot of work in the past few weeks to better prepare himself to race on dirt.

“We did a lot of work in the dirt department here the last few weeks,” Logano said.  “Just making laps and learning where I was going, and a lot of that helped.”

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Logano held off Denny Hamlin over the final stage as the two drivers fought their way through lapped traffic.  Logano pulled out ahead on the final restart when Hamlin’s car didn’t stick on the high side headed into Turn 1.

Logano said he had to change his driving style to hold Hamlin off over the final run.

“Denny and I had a heck of a race because he found grip up top,” Logano said.  “I don’t know how to do that, so I had to go up there and figure it out.  Defended the lead position and then eventually just worked the lapped cars.”

Hamlin said the track lost grip before the final restart and he couldn’t hang with Logano on the high side.

“They didn’t prep it in between cautions like they did before,” Hamlin said.  “I thought I could just…run the top in hard.  It was just marbles up there.”

“Thought I had a shot there; cut the 22 [of Logano] too many breaks there when he was cutting us off.  We’re third-best again.”

Unofficial results:

1. Joey Logano

2. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

3. Denny Hamlin

4. Daniel Suarez

5. Ryan Newman

6. William Byron

7. Tyler Reddick

8. Ryan Blaney

9. Erik Jones

10. Chase Elliott

11. Brad Keselowski

12. Michael McDowell

13. Matt DiBenedetto

14. Chris Buescher

15. Kevin Harvick

16. Kurt Busch

17. Kyle Busch

18. Ryan Preece

19. Martin Truex Jr.

20. Chase Briscoe

21. Austin Dillon

22. Alex Bowman

23. Stewart Friesen

24. Cole Custer

25. Quin Houff

26. Ty Dillon

27. Bubba Wallace

28. JJ Yeley

29. Kyle Larson

30. Josh Bilicki

31. Mike Marlar

32. Cody Ware

33. Chris Windom

34. Christopher Bell

35. Ross Chastain

36. Aric Almirola

37. Shane Golobic

38. Corey LaJoie

39. Anthony Alfredo

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