Joey Logano survived the heat, rain delay and wild overtime restarts to claim his first win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season Sunday, June 30.
The win came after multiple late cautions that sent the field into overtime.
It took five attempts, but Logano was able to outlast the other leaders to win low on fuel.
Zane Smith, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Preece and Chris Buescher completed the top five, while Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson, Daniel Hemric and Noah Gragson rounded out the top 10.
Smith snagged his best Cup finish, as well as his first top five.
Christopher Bell swept both stage one and two with dominant showings that ultimately ended in the final stage following a strategy-fueled pit stop. With some cars trapped in the rear of the field choosing to stay out, the leaders hit the pits for two- and four-tire stops. This strategy call sent the top five cars, including Bell, into the middle of the pack. On the restart, Bell made an aggressive pass on the outside that sent his No. 20 Toyota spinning into the wall and out of the race.
When the field took the green again, further aggressive racing led to another race contender making a mistake. This time it was Brad Keselowski who made an aggressive pass on the No. 3 Chevrolet of Austin Dillon, spinning himself out and into the wall off the front of Dillon.
Under this caution, Carson Hocevar spun Harrison Burton as retaliation for an earlier block.
From there, Hamlin battled hard against Ross Chastain in the closing laps, until the caution flew for a solo spin by Austin Cindric.
When the green flag waved again, now in overtime, Larson pushed Hamlin past Chastain but lost grip in the bottom lane, sending himself up and into Chastain, who then slammed into the outside wall before being hit by Ty Gibbs and others.
Another attempt at overtime resulted in a caution following several cars at the rear of the field spinning.
Low fuel concerns proved to be of merit the following attempt, after Larson lost power at the start/finish line, wrecking Kyle Busch.
A fourth attempt at the finish resulted in several cars running out of fuel, sparking the yellow flag to fly again.
The fifth attempt proved to be the lucky one for Logano, who claimed his 33rd win.
Nashville Cup Results
Next, the NASCAR Cup Series visits the streets of Chicago for the Grant Park 165 on July 7. Coverage will be provided by NBC, MRN and SiriusXM beginning at 4:30 p.m. E.T.
About the author
Ty joined the Frontstretch team in February of 2024 as a Contributor covering Sunday news. He has two books available on Amazon: A Perfect Sundae and Chartreuse: Crime & Horror Short Stories.
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Way to go Joey. I feel bad for hamlin lololol how many points behind Larson lol
I guess Joey is now the favourite to win the title!
lol that’s tomorrow’s story.