Miss, then a make for Logano in Vegas
NASCAR last season. At the start of this year, owner Roger Penske announced he’d swapped the crews of Logano, Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski, with Logano getting Wolfe, the crew chief who led Keselowski to a Cup title.
They’ve worked together at the track the last three weeks and Logano praised the new pairing.
“He’s done such a great job, and it’s been fun getting to know each other, and the whole team,” Logano said. “The pit crew was amazing today. I think we gained a spot every time at least. Proud of the effort that everyone has put in over the offseason.”
Logano had taken the white flag when a crash occurred deep in traffic to bring out the caution, freeze the field and secure the victory for the No. 22 Ford.
The 24th victory of Logano’s career broke a tie with Ricky Rudd for 35th on NASCAR’s all-time win list.
Matt DiBenedetto in a Ford for the Wood Brothers — a Penske partner — for his second race was 0.491 seconds behind to tie his career-best finish.
“This is all just too surreal,” he said. “Tough to be that close, but, hey, this is only the second race of the season. So it was the strength of this team. It’s so cool to have the backing of all the people that allow me to drive this thing.”
Stenhouse, pole-sitter for the Daytona 500 a week ago, was third in a Chevrolet in his second race for new team JTGDaugherty Racing.
“So far so good,” Stenhouse said. “Two weeks, we’ve been fast this week, we weren’t bad this week, and we know what we need to work on.”
Austin Dillon was fourth for Richard Childress Racing and Jimmie Johnson fifth.