Logan wins first NASCAR dirt track race in 50 years
Somewhere under the thick red haze floating over Bristol Motor Speedway, Joey Logano took the checkered flagfor NASCAR’s first Cup Series race at a dirt track in 50 years.
He couldn’t see much — visibility was next to nothing during this Monday dust storm — but Logano clung to the familiar bottom lane around the bullring to collect the checkered flag on this NASCAR experiment.
Logano got a jump on Denny Hamlin on the overtime restart to earn his third career victory at Bristol. But this was not the Bristol of old, the track had been covered with 2,300 truckloads of red Tennessee clay so that NASCAR could add a dirt track to the Cup schedule for the first time since 1970.
“How about Bristol on dirt, guys! This is incredible,” Logano said to the crowd, a reduced capacity sellout of about 30,000 fans.
Hamlin finished third after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. passed him on the penultimate lap. Martin Truex Jr. fell from third to 19th on the final two laps after a cut tire on the final restart. Truex dominated the first portion of the race.
Logano is the seventh winner in seven Cup Series races in 2021.
Bristol and NASCAR made the decision to host the annual spring race at the track on a temporary dirt surface as part of numerous changes to the 2021 Cup Series schedule. The novelty made it entertaining, even if there were more similarities to the concrete version of Bristol than might have been expected. The predominant groove was the bottom lane as drivers weren’t able to get anything going in a second groove.
The race wasn’t easy to see for fans at home. The track was exceptionally dusty and clouded a bunch of Fox’s camera angles. Only close-up shots over the last half of the race were clear. Everything else looked like a movie from Mars.
ETC.
MLB: Card games, car pools and eating at restaurants may be back in the major leagues later this season. Trips to church and sponsor events may return, too. Mask use would be dropped from dugouts and bullpens, and electronic tracing devices would be eliminated when 85% of major-league players and primary field staff are vaccinated against the coronavirus. A threepage memorandum from Major League Baseball and the players’ association sent to players and staff and obtained by
The Associated Press also stated “all players and staff are strongly encouraged to receive one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines when eligible.” ... Anthony Rizzo is cutting off talks with the Chicago Cubs on a new contract and is prepared to play the season as free agency looms after the World Series . ... Rougned Odor, the Texas Rangers’ starting second baseman the past seven seasons, has been told he won’t be on the Opening Day roster after switching to third base this spring training. The 27-year-old infielder has two more seasons and $24.6 million left on his six-year contract.
NFL: The New York Giants signed defensive tackle Danny Shelton, who was a first-round draft choice of Cleveland in 2015 and won a Super Bowl with New England.