Logano overcomes missed pit call to win at Las Vegas

DiBenedetto finishes 2nd, Stenhouse 3rd

LAS VEGAS, Feb 24, (AP): The adjustments to a major offseason overhaul at Team Penske continued 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

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.

Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in 17th as the brand and Joe Gibbs Racing struggled the entire 400 miles.

Ross Chastain drove the No. 6 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing as the replacement driver for Ryan Newman, who suffered a head injury in a crash on the final lap of Monday night’s Daytona 500. It ended a streak of 649 consecutive starts dating to 2002 for Newman, who has no timetable for a return but his team said Sunday that he intends to get back in his car.

Chastain finished 29th, in part because of a late spin, but ran inside the top-10 earlier in the race. Roush Fenway has not indicated who will drive the car next week.

Chastain was bitterly disappointed as he headed to his Xfinity Series car for the resumption of Saturday’s race, which was rained out after 50 laps and rescheduled for after the main event.

Joey Logano celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Feb

23. (AP)