The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Logano wins second in a row in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS » The adjustments to a major offseason overhaul at Team Penske continued Feb. 23 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where miscommunication between Joey Logano and his new crew chief led to a botched final pit stop.
Logano still wound up in victory lane for the second year in a row, winning a two-lap sprint to the finish that ended under caution.
A caution with six laps remaining forced teams to make strategic decisions and crew chief Paul Wolfe told Logano to come to pit road for new tires. Logano didn’t hear Wolfe and remained on track, a move that cycled him into the lead but put him in position to hold off a slew of contenders on fresh tires.
Logano knew it was critical to get his Ford separated from the pack quickly on the restart to have any shot at the win.
“Clean air was going to be key with old tires,” he said. “If I got swallowed up by a couple cars, I was just going to fall backwards really quick.”
Logano got a push from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on the restart with two laps remaining, then threw a block on William Byron to maintain his position out front that Logano called “the winning move.
“I was able to get down in front of him and then be able to separate myself a little bit from the field,” he said.
Logano, the 2018 champion, just missed advancing to the championship race 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 JTG-Daugherty 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 followed by Jimmie Johnson, Bubba Wallace, Logano teammate Keselowski and Kevin Harvick.
Kyle Larson and Ty Dillon rounded out the top 10.