Joey Logano passed Kyle Busch in overtime to win the inaugural Cup race at World Wide Technology Raceway before a sold-out crowd of more than 57,000 Sunday.
It’s Logano’s second points win of the season. Logano’s win completes a sweep of Sunday for Team Penske, which won the NTT IndyCar Series Detroit Grand Prix with Will Power.
A crash by Kevin Harvick set up the dramatic finish. Busch restarted on the outside and had Logano on his inside on the front row.
Logano got the lead in Turn 1. Busch crossed over and got the lead in Turn 3. Logano then dived underneath Busch to get the lead back in Turn 4 and went on to win.
“It was a good race crossing each other,” Logano said. “Who would have thought we had slide jobs like that here? I thought we would be running towards the bottom, and we were running way up top and crossing each other. It was a lot of fun to race here, and looking forward to coming back.”
Said Busch: “My car was better on the outside, but it took a few laps for it to get rolling up there. Cold tires, firing off on that restart – didn’t have the help behind me. I was going to put my hand out the window and signal to Kurt (Busch) to push me along and Joey (Logano) was half a car back out my window trying to see it, so the hand signal was going to be irrelevant, so I didn’t do it, which kind of made Kurt too far back.
“Got into Turn 1 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, so I don’t know.”
Busch finished second, Kurt Busch was third, followed by Ryan Blaney and Aric Almirola.
Ross Chastain, who finished eighth, provided much of the drama in the first two stages.
Chastain’s bump sent Denny Hamlin into the wall, leading to a caution on Lap 66. Hamlin expressed his dissatisfaction about 15 laps later, forcing Chastain down to the apron on the backstretch when Chastain went by the slower Hamlin.
But that wasn’t the end of things.
Chastain was squeezed in the middle of three-wide on a restart just after Lap 100 and hit Chase Elliott, sending Elliott into the wall.
On the restart, Elliott lined up behind Chastain and hit the back of Chastain’s car, sending it up the track. Hamlin, who restarted behind both then came by and hit the side of Chastain’s car. Hamlin was told on his radio that NASCAR said that was enough.
Flat left rear tires impacted the race for Chase Briscoe and Blaney.
Briscoe led the first 27 laps from the pole before he had to pit for a flat left rear tire. Blaney hit the wall after a flat left rear to bring out the caution on Lap 96.
STAGE 1 WINNER: Austin Cindric
STAGE 2 WINNER: Kurt Busch
WHO HAD A GOOD RACE: Kyle Busch’s runner-up finish is his third consecutive top-three finish. … Kurt Busch’s third-place finish gives top fives in two of the last three races. … Erik Jones placed seventh for his fifth top 10 of the season. He had six top 10s last year. … Christopher Bell was ninth for his career-best fifth top 10 in a row. … Zane Smith finished 17th in his Cup debut, filling in on for Chris Buescher, who was out after testing positive for COVID-19 this week.
WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Denny Hamlin’s day went downhill after a bump from Ross Chastain sent Hamlin into the wall and damaged his car. Hamlin limped to a 34th-place finish. … Kevin Harvick crashed at the end, sending the race into overtime. He finished 33rd.
NEXT: The series races June 12 at Sonoma Raceway (4 p.m. ET on FS1)
