Logano holds off Keselowski in Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Joey Logano held off teammate Brad Keselowski on Sunday to win the NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Logano drove his Team Penske Ford to his 22nd career win, his first of the season, after answering Keselowski’s last-lap passing attempt down the stretch. Logano had not won a Cup race in Vegas in 11 tries across 10 full-time seasons, although he won an Xfinity Series race there in 2017.
The first race under NASCAR’s full new rules package produced a cautionfree event with some exciting action up front, including a few wild restarts after the two segment breaks.
“What a great race,” Logano said. “Brad and I were so evenly matched, and you just can’t pull away [under the new rules]. My heart is still running.”
Keselowski drove up from 19th to take the lead with 27 laps left before his bid for back-to-back wins was denied by Logano, who passed Keselowski while he was held up by lapped traffic.
“I’d like to have one more lap,” he said. “It was a good battle, and we were both fighting really hard at the top. It seemed like it came down to what the lapped cars were going to do.”
Kyle Busch finished third, unable to recover from a mid-race speeding penalty in the hometown driver’s quest for the third three-race weekend sweep in NASCAR history.
“If we didn’t have the speeding penalty on pit road, we would have won this race,” Busch said. “The driver threw it away.”
Busch won the Trucks race Friday and the Xfinity race Saturday, giving him 197 overall wins. He has won one Cup race in Vegas and lamented his mistake after speeding down pit road.
Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick was fourth and Kurt Busch finished fifth, the Las Vegas native’s first top-five finish at his hometown track since 2005. Fords took five of the top seven spots.
NASCAR debuted the entirety of its new rules package Sunday, designed to foster tighter racing and more passing. Racers are expected to drive in large packs with frequent lead changes due to reduced speeds and increased downforce. The changes didn’t lead to any big wrecks in Las Vegas.