Late Push Lifts Logano To Victory In Cup Playoff Opener

Joey Logano celebrates after winning Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (HHP/Andrew Coppley photo)

HAMPTON, Ga. – With a push from teammate Ryan Blaney that could only be described as “Penske Perfect,” Joey Logano surged late at Atlanta Motor Speedway to win Sunday’s Quaker State 400 available at Walmart.

The Middletown, Conn., native and two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion didn’t even take the lead until four laps to go, following a restart after the sixth yellow flag of the day, but was the strongest when the chips were down.

After a debris caution on lap 250 – for a piece of associate race sponsor Walmart’s signage falling onto the frontstretch, of all things – Ty Gibbs led the field back to green for a five-lap dash but only had the top spot for a lap before Logano surged on the far outside lane in turn three to challenge for the lead.

With a move reminiscent of Suarez’s pass for the win at Atlanta in February, Logano roared to the point on top of three-wide, with Suarez ironically in the middle and Gibbs all the way down low.

At that point, Blaney got to Logano’s rear bumper and gave him the necessary drafting help to lead each time at the flagstand over Suarez, before Noah Gragson’s crash on the backstretch with a lap and a half left sent the race into extra distance.

The Team Penske pair of Logano and Blaney lined up nose-to-tail on the inside lane, with the Trackhouse Racing duo of Suarez and Ross Chastain similarly aligned to their outside.

Both tandems stayed locked together during the first lap of overtime, but Chastain lost touch with Suarez coming off turn four, allowing Blaney to push Logano clear into the lead at the white flag.

From that point, Logano played perfect defense to hold back the hounds, leading alone out front when multiple playoff contenders crashed behind him in turn four coming to the checkers.

The caution waved yards from the finish line, but it didn’t matter. Logano was the clear winner, punching his ticket to the second round of the Cup Series playoffs in the process.

“[This team] just gives me really fast cars on superspeedways, and we always find ourselves towards the front of them – we just end up wrecking more times than not. So, to be able to finally capitalize on a fast race car and win here in Atlanta again is huge,” said Logano, who narrowly avoided a lap-205 crash between Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., and non-playoff driver Chris Buescher in order to remain in contention.

“We kind of just got stuck back [in the pack] and [I] couldn’t figure out how to get myself back up there, but then I finally picked the right lanes at the right time to move myself forward,” he added. “That part was good.”

Joey Logano (22) is pushed by Ryan Blaney at the white flag in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (HHP/Harold Hinson photo)

Logano has won two of the past four races at Atlanta, a place he considers one of his home venues considering how many Thursday Thunder races he won on the track’s frontstretch quarter mile in Legend cars and Bandoleros over the years.

In fact, Logano actually lived in one of the condominiums overlooking the speedway in his youth, with visions of one day racing on “the big track,” as he called it then.

“I lived right over there (gestures) in 805 for a long time, waking up dreaming of just racing on this racetrack, so pulling into victory lane here is always a special one,” he noted. “We had such a good team here today. It’s awesome to get Autotrader into victory lane … and the JL Kids Crew is here today, so it’s really, really cool to finally win with them here.”

Suarez was seeking a season sweep of wins at Atlanta and came within one position of accomplishing the feat. Unfortunately, his drafting help evaporated at “the worst possible time” coming to the final lap.

“I’d have to go back and rewatch everything again. I was pretty confident that the top [lane] was going to be better [on the final restart], and that the 22 [Logano] was going to be able to push me like the 1 [Chastain] did, being on the outside … and we got a great launch, but we just got disconnected too early,” Suarez explained. “That obviously hurt us, and then others were able to stay connected for longer and beat us; break our momentum.

“It’s pretty painful right now,” he added when asked how he felt about coming so close to another win. “We were in position, but sometimes it’s very difficult to predict who’s going to give the best push and for how long you’re going to get [that shove], but that’s all part of the game, right? We were in contention; the team did an amazing job, and the car looked amazing all day long.

“We’re happy with [the result for the point standings], but not satisfied.”

After sustaining damage to the door of his Ford Mustang in the lap-205 incident on the backstretch, which required a sheet-metal patch to repair it, Blaney rallied from 32nd with 50 to go in regulation to end up third in a side-by-side fight with Suarez off the final corner.

Christopher Bell crossed fourth ahead of Alex Bowman, with regular season champion Tyler Reddick close behind as playoff drivers swept the top six finishing positions.

Kyle Busch was the only driver not championship-eligible to finish in the top 10, coming home seventh, followed by Chase Elliott, William Byron, and Austin Cindric.

Prior to lap 205, the only major incident of the race came five laps from the end of stage one, when Kyle Larson’s Chevrolet snapped loose in turn two from third and shot up the racetrack as it overcorrected.

Larson slammed the outside wall before being hit hard in the rear corner by Chase Briscoe, who had nowhere to go and plowed into the accident scene from behind.

Both drivers were eliminated after just 55 laps, with Larson finishing 37th and Briscoe 38th, respectively.

That incident, combined with the final lap melee that involved 11 total cars and two playoff contenders in Denny Hamlin and Harrison Burton, rocked the point standings with two races left in the Round of 16.

With Blaney locked in via his win, Bell leaves Atlanta as the highest driver on points, 40 above the cut line. Meanwhile, Larson dropped from first to ninth and gave up 25 points from his 40-point buffer coming in.

Briscoe sits worst among the 16 playoff drivers heading to Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International on Sunday, Sept. 15, 21 points back of 12th-place Ty Gibbs.

Broadcast coverage of the Go Bowling at the Glen, the second race of the first playoff round, is slated for 3 p.m. ET, live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.