Logano leads big day for Penske drivers
Truck win comes as team takes top four on IndyCar grid.
Joey Logano passed Matt Crafton on a restart entering the dirst turn and won a two-lap sprint to the dinish in capturing an exciting NASCAR Truck race Saturday at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.
Logano, the Daytona 500 champion, started from the pole in a Ford and won for the dirst time in the truck series. He became the 26th driver to win in all three of NASCAR’s top series.
Logano also kept a dominating week going for Penske Racing. He will start on the pole in today’s Sprint Cup race, and Penske drivers earned the top four places in qualifying for today’s IndyCar opener in St. Petersburg, Fla,
“It seems as though Penske employs people with lots of experience,” said Will Power, the reigning IndyCar champion who won the pole Saturday. “We know how to work together.”
Penske’s Brad Keselowski won last week’s Sprint Cup race in Fontana, Calif., and will start 12th today.
Crafton, who led 100 laps in his Toyota to Logano’s 150, digured he might be in trouble with the two-lap dinish on the .526-mile layout.
“I was honestly a little bit worried because it would take my truck four or dive laps to get going, but all in all, not a bad day,” said Crafton, the two-time defending series champion.
“His shot was going to be getting down there in Turn 1, and he lagged back just enough and got a good run on us. I felt that I had a decent restart there but man, I have no idea. He came like a shot out of a cannon right there and went by us.”
Logano wasn’t sure how much car he had left.
“I just had a good restart. Tires hooked up well,” he said. “I prepped them good down the back straightaway and made sure I had them clean enough. I had a good jump and then just drove it in there and hoped for the best.”
The dinish came after 17-year-old Cole Custer slammed into the back of Crafton’s truck in the dirst turn with dive laps to go, sending both Crafton and Logano wide while Custer darted underneath for the lead.
Custer, driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr., was somewhat apologetic afterward, calling the hard hit an “accident.”
On the next lap, Crafton sent him spinning, and Custer wound up 16th.
“I drove in too hard and I couldn’t stop so I hit him a little bit too hard,” Custer said. “But it worked so I knew he was going to come back and nudge me a little bit. He did it respectfully.”
Power twice broke the street course record at St. Petersburg, the second time at 1 minute, .6509 seconds. Teammates Simon Pagenaud, Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya followed him in qualifying. They drive Chevrolets.
“There’s four of us, four really good drivers, great equipment, similar equipment,” said Pagenaud, who joined the team during the offseason as Penske expanded to four cars to accommodate the French driver.
Takuma Sato of A.J. Foyt Racing qualidied difth, the only Honda driver in the top six.
IndyCar:
Saturday’s Games ■ (At) Hornets JJT, Hawks J00: Kemba Walker scored =P points to lead Charlotte past an Atlanta team resting all five starters. Gerald Henderson scored =0 points on H-of-P0 shooting, and Mo Williams hit four ^-pointers and had PJ points as the Hornets snapped a three-game losing streak. ■ (At) Bulls JJJ, Knicks D0: Nikola Mirotic scored =, points, Pau Gasol added PH points and P= rebounds, and Chicago handed New York its franchise-record O0th loss. The Knicks dropped their seventh straight and P,th in PO games. ■ Warriors at Bucks: Late ■ Thunder at Jazz: Late ■ Nuggets at Trail Blazers: Late
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