Joey Logano wins Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Yellow was the color of the day Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
It was the color of the enormous logo in the middle of the frontstretch grass between the racetrack and the pits.
It was the color of the winning car.
And it was the color of the flag that helped Joey Logano win his second consecutive Pennzoil 400.
The 2018 NASCAR Cup champion stayed on the track during a yellow-flag pit stop with five laps to go and held on for the win in front of an estimated crowd of 50,000.
“We talked about the scenario, whether it was the end of a stage or the end of a race, can we get clean air?” said Logano, who led 54 of the 267 laps. “At what point are we comfortable staying out?”
He made the gamble work and won under the caution flag when several cars collided on the white-flag lap.
“Paul (Wolfe, his new crew chief) came over the radio and said stick to the plan,” explained the lanky 29-year-old veteran from Connecticut. “It got us in a position to have a good restart. I had a good push with Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) behind me and had a good block on the 24 (William Byron) once I got the push. Once you get that clean air, I was in good shape.”
Clean air, clean win
Wolfe, who was moved over to Logano’s No. 22 Ford from Keselowski’s No. 2 during NASCAR’s short offseason, said the decision to stay out wasn’t difficult despite the number of cars that pitted for fresh tires.
“If you can get clean air, it’s worth so much,” Wolfe said. “The tires were wearing some … but the falloff (in performance) from the start of a run to the end wasn’t that extreme.”
Matt DiBenedetto finished second, followed by Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Jimmie Johnson.
It was not a good day for Las Vegas natives Kyle and Kurt Busch, who finished 15th and 25th, respectively in the 38-car field. Chase Elliott won the first two race stages and led 70 laps before suffering a flat tire and hitting the wall. He finished 26th.
The victory was Logano’s 24th in 401 Cup Series starts and continued Team Penske’s dominance on the 1.5-mile LVMS oval.
Logano and teammate Brad Keselowski, who finished seventh, have won five of the past nine Las Vegas races. And Ryan Blaney, the third Penske driver, led 19 laps and appeared headed to victory before the yellow came out for Ross Chastain’s late spin. Blaney and second-place Alex Bowman were among those who pitted for tires.
“This has been our best racetrack in recent years,” Logano said of the three-car Penske stable. “So it’s not a surprise to see all those cars up front.”
Blaney’s tough luck
Logano agreed that with any luck it could have been his teammate Blaney answering victory questions.
It was shaping up as an emotional postscript to the ill-fated Daytona 500. Blaney was the one who tapped Ryan Newman’s car as the two raced for the win, precipitating Newman’s violent crash that had the NASCAR garage on edge until he was released from the hospital two days later.
“Ryan Newman walking out the hospital was the best thing for both Ryans,” Logano said. “But Blaney didn’t do anything wrong. He was trying to win the race and then a bump ended up sending Ryan (Newman) for a hell ride. It’s just the position the sport puts us in sometimes.”
Logano said despite Team Penske’s dominance at LVMS, wins are never easy, and several car and driver combinations made this one a little more difficult.
“Paul and I were talking before the race that there didn’t really seem like there was a dominant car,” he said. “The 9 (Elliott) was good; the 4 (Kevin Harvick, 92 laps led) was good; the 19 (Martin Truex Jr. ) was good. The 88 (Bowman) was good — almost won the race as well. But no one was going to go out there and lead a ton of laps.
“So, I felt like we were in the hunt, and as long as we were in the hunt, we could try to fabricate something to get there.”
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.
