Joey Logano returned to North Wilkesboro Speedway with a smoking-hot victory — and so did NASCAR — on Sunday night.
The three-time Cup champion dominated by leading a career-high 323 laps as the sport welcomed the historic short track back to the Cup Series’ regular-season points schedule for the first time since 1996 in the Window World 450 in North Wilkesboro, N.C.
Winless since early May of last season at Texas Motor Speedway, the No. 22 Team Penske driver notched his 38th career victory in 16 seasons by topping Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota over the final half of the race, beating the points leader by 0.859 seconds in a long stretch of green-flag racing.
Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen rounded out the top five.
Sixth-place Bubba Wallace was the final car on the lead lap.
“A win anywhere at this point would have sounded great, but (it) coming here at North Wilkesboro is awesome,” said Logano, who is 15th in points after the five-caution race. “(The track) is just something that clicks for us. … I feel like I know exactly when I need to go fast around this place. (Crew chief Paul Wolfe) was able to give it to me.
“We knew we had to capitalize on the points. A win would be great, but we’re going to need the points.”
Hamlin used lapped traffic to cut into his deficit to Logano and congratulated the 36-year-old Ford driver on the run.
“You’ve just got to compliment him on a great day,” said points leader Hamlin, who moved 68 ahead of Tyler Reddick in the standings. “It was a great drive. They were really good. … He had a lot of speed and didn’t give up on the short run or long run.
“It was wildly impressive.”
After three cleanly-raced support events over the weekend, Ryan Blaney was slotted first after qualifying was washed out Saturday, but his No. 12 Ford team had to fix a power steering issue that sent him to the back of the 37-car field.
That gave the point to Gibbs, who took them to green in a points race at the track for the first time since polesitter Ted Musgrave did so on Sept. 29, 1996, before a nearly three-decade-long shutdown of the 0.625-mile short track.
Gibbs led the first 40 circuits until John Hunter Nemechek spun after contact with Zane Smith, and the first caution period ended with Hamlin taking two tires to claim the lead on the restart.
Gibbs hustled back in his No. 54 Toyota and narrowly beat van Gisbergen to win Stage 1, which consisted of 80 laps. Logano, Hamlin and Carson Hocevar were the next three finishers.
Logano, the 2024 winner of the All-Star Race at NWS, took the lead from van Gisbergen on Lap 113 in Turn 4 in the 185 laps that made up Stage 2.
He increased his advantage over second-place Chase Elliott to 3 1/2 seconds by Lap 150 and soon lapped Gibbs (speeding penalty), but Hamlin found his way to move by Elliott in the first long green-flag run on the short track.
On Lap 183, Alex Bowman and Reddick wrecked coming off Turn 2 and slid onto the pit-road entrance for the third caution, putting William Byron and Elliott two laps down after their green-flag stop.
Logano captured Stage 2 for his first segment win this season, and Hamlin, Briscoe, Wallace and van Gisbergen earned top-five bonus points.
–Field Level Media
