Logano gets it done

Logano wins Talladega fall race for second year in a row — in overtime; Hamlin makes it into the next round of the Chase by a whisker

By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today

TALLADEGA — Joey Logano found his way into Victory Lane in the fall race at Talladega Superspeedway for the second year in a row to revive his Sprint Cup championship hopes, but the big winner Sunday may have been Denny Hamlin.

Finding himself in a do-or-die situation to make the next round of the Sprint Cup Chase, the 26-year-old Logano won the Hellmann’s 500 in NASCAR’s version of overtime after Alex Bowman slid onto the apron on Lap 187. He held off upstart Brian Scott after the restart for his 16th career Sprint Cup win to advance to the Round of 8 in the championship chase.

“It feels so good to win here because you never know you have it until the end,” Logano said. “I wasn’t sure what lane to go into (at the end). Coming to the one-to-go line I still hadn’t had my mind made up, but it all worked. We’re going to the next round.”

So is Hamlin – by the slimmest of margins. Hamlin finished third in the race and the result left him tied with Austin Dillon for the eighth and final spot to advance into the next round of the Chase. The third-place finish proved to be the difference, because it was the best finish between the two in the three races of this second stage.

Hamlin almost didn’t get it. He pulled out to the right on the final lap and looked to get stuck, but Harvick lifted at the finish and that allowed Hamlin to slide back in front of Kurt Busch by six one-thousandths of a second (0.006) for third. Dillon finished ninth, three one-thousandths (0.003) behind non-Chaser Aric Almirola.

Hamlin entered the race six points behind Logano and Dillon’s deadlock for the final transfer spot, but with the team deciding earlier in the week its three committed advancers would ride safely in the back all day, he was on his own.

He didn’t want points updates as the race went on — he had enough on his mind with 34 drivers on the lead lap at the end — but he knew if he finished in the top five he had the tiebreaker over Dillon. Hamlin finished 30th, 15th and third in the three races of the stage (Charlotte, Kansas, Talladega), while Dillon finished 32nd, sixth and ninth.

The next stage is Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix, heading to the season-finale at Homestead.

“We needed some things fall our way if we didn’t win the race and today things fell our way, and then the last lap we went out and earned it,” Hamlin said. “I think all the years I’ve been doing this … I really truly believe this is the first really great fortune that we had in the Chase in my 11-year career. Things just happened well for us. It’s a new life for us. We’re on house money at this point.”

The eight drivers advancing to the next stage were segment race winners Logano, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch. Logano is the only Ford in the group, stacked against four Toyotas and three Chevys.

The four Chasers left behind were Martin Truex Jr., the race polesitter blew an engine early in the race; Brad Keselowski, who led 90 laps and blew an engine on Lap 144; Chase Elliott and Dillon.

“We did everything we could,” Dillon said. “It’s heartbreaking. You need a spot and it comes down to three one-thousandths. We made it to another round, thought we were going to make another, but it didn’t happen. It was working out pretty good in the middle of the race. We made it to where we needed to with just a green-white-checkered and weren’t able to pull it off.”

Logano came to Talladega this fall in a completely different situation than he was a year ago. He won all three races of this stage last year, but this was the first time in the Chase format he had come to Talladega without a win to push him into the next round. And he had to overcome a bunch of drama to get this one.

Early in the race he left the pits with a jack stuck under the car and drove it all the way around the track – 2.66 miles – before returning to have it removed. Then he went several laps after the final scheduled pit stop with debris on the grill.

“We knew what we had to do, who we had to beat, but right after the first pit stop everything changed up; this isn’t going like we planned,” Logano said. “Then (Truex) blew up and that was the caution we needed to stay on the lead lap after making an extra pit stop. All that kind of helped us along and made me feel a little bit better about our chances to get to the next round.

“We’ll have to buy a new jack next week, but it’s nice to know we have a world record of fastest jack underneath a race car.”

There really wasn’t the traditional Big One wreck that would collect dozens of cars at a time and influence who would contend at the end, but each incident during the race did increase the drama.

The eventual race winner took the lead on the last restart in five of the last six Chase races. On the restart after Bowman’s slide, Logano took the inside and jumped out in front quickly. He had the lead when he got to the overtime line and made one final block on Scott coming out of Turn 4 to take the checkered.

The stress of the day spilled over at the end. After the race television cameras caught Harvick approaching Kurt Busch, reaching into his car and accosting his Stewart-Haas teammate. It’s the third time in as many years Harvick got physical with another driver during the Chase. Apparently, this time, Busch swiped the side of Harvick’s car during the cool down lap.

“He has a misunderstanding of the call at the end of the race,” Busch said. “He’ll understand it and I’m sure he’ll clear it up in his interview.”

He didn’t.

“I don’t really understand that,” Harvick said.

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