He’s the seventh different winner and seventh different driver in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
It took a long time to find out who would win the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway after Mother Nature once again played her hand in delaying a NASCAR event, but it was Joey Logano who was victorious in a green-white-checkered finish in Monday’s race.
Joey Logano ran in the top ten for the entire race and took the lead on lap 227. He would not give up that lead until a late-race caution flew as Kurt Busch was slow on the track. Jeff Gordon and Brian Vickers’ teams decided to take two tires for track position. Gordon had a good restart and had the lead on the first lap. The four tires Logano took proved to be a stronger choice as the powered past Gordon just after the white flag flew. Logano was able to secure the win.
Logano is the youngest race winner at Texas Motor Speedway. He also led the most laps on the day with 108.
The race didn’t start as smoothly as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. would have hoped. On the third lap of the race, the nose of his car met the grass off the dogleg of the track and shot him up in to the wall. His car skidded across the top and caught on fire. Luckily, he was ok, but his car was done for the day. His team left the racetrack and headed to Michigan International Speedway for a tire test for the next two days.
Jimmie Johnson suffered the aftermath of Earnhardt’s bump in the grass. The front of his car was a muddy mess and his windshield suffered damage. While the team worked hard to fix the damage, Johnson was three laps down and would finish two laps down. Kevin Harvick had engine issues and was out of the race on lap three.
Pole-sitter Tony Stewart had a strong day. He led 74 laps on the day and had a top ten finish. His teammate, Kurt Busch, had quite the day causing two cautions on the afternoon. He cut a couple of tires which tore up his race car. He finished 39th.
Rookie Kyle Larson battled to get to the front all afternoon and had a fifth place finish. He was the highest finishing rookie.
Kyle Busch had an impressive run starting 29th and wheeling his No. 18 to third place. Brad Keselowski was running in the top ten and got a pit road speeding penalty prior to the G-W-C finish. He finished 15th. Speaking of pit road speeding penalties, Hamlin got one of those as he was finishing a pit stop and was leading the race. He would rebound and run in the top ten, but he finished in the 13th spot.
The top ten: Joey Logano, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers, Kyle Larson, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard and Tony Stewart.
The next race will be the Bojangles’ Southern 500 on Sunday, April 12 at Darlington Raceway. The race will begin at 6:30 p.m. ET.
