Questions Answered After Joey Logano Wins Big in Texas

Who… should you be talking about after the race?

Before Sunday’s (May 4) Würth 400, if anyone was talking about Joey Logano, they were probably talking about his slow start to 2025. The defending Cup Series champion rolled into Texas Motor Speedway with just one top-10 finish in the first 10 races, including coming home dead last a week ago at Talladega Superspeedway following a penalty in post-race inspection.

Sunday didn’t start off looking particularly promising for Logano, who started 27th and was mired in traffic early. By the end of stage two, he’d gained enough positions to finish ninth.

The race featured a dozen cautions, and each time, Logano and the No. 22 team made small gains. By the time the final round of stops was completed, Logano had one of the fastest cars on the track and had cracked the top five.

In front of him were Michael McDowell, who clung tenaciously to the lead despite a two-tire gamble on his last stop, Kyle Larson, who looked like the driver to beat until he faded fast in the closing laps, and teammate Ryan Blaney.

On a series of late restarts, Logano dispatched Larson, then Blaney and passed McDowell in overtime. In total, Logano led just seven laps all day, but the last two were all he needed for his first victory of 2025 and the 37th of his Cup career, tying him with Bobby Isaac for 23rd all-time in the series.

What… does this mean for the points standings?

11 races into the season, we’re at a point where big changes in the standings aren’t a weekly occurrence as consistency becomes more of a factor over the long haul.

Still, there are a couple of changes in the top five. Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell swapped places, with Reddick taking over the fifth spot from Bell, who falls to sixth.

While William Byron remains in the top spot, his lead over teammate Larson shrank from 31 points to 13 after Byron finished 13th to Larson’s fourth in Texas. Hamlin remains third but falls to an 83-point deficit, tied with Chase Elliott.

With Reddick now fifth, Bell, Blaney, Bubba Wallace, Logano and Alex Bowman now complete the top 10.

Wallace and Blaney also swapped places after Texas. Logano’s win was worth two spots. Ross Chastain fell out of the top 10 despite his second-place result.

The biggest gain of the week was three positions, with Carson Hocevar climbing from 20th to 17th, Austin Dillon moving from 24th to 21st, and John Hunter Nemechek taking over 23rd from 26th.

Where… did he come from?

While he didn’t get the finish that he wanted (and deserved), everybody knew McDowell was there on Sunday. After multiple pit penalties, McDowell’s only chance was to try something different, so the No. 71 team made a gamble on a two-tire stop on the final round of pit stops.

It almost paid off in a huge way.

McDowell survived restart after restart, but the wear on the left-side tires finally cost him. Logano and Blaney got by on the penultimate restart, and McDowell lost grip in the wake of Blaney’s car, spinning out and ending his day just shy of the finish. If not for those late cautions, there might have been a different headline.

McDowell’s performance does leave one big question out there: how might he have done had he spent his career with a top organization?

When… was the moment of truth?

Aero dependence was on full display Sunday. McDowell’s crash might have been the most painful example, but it certainly wasn’t the only one. The first caution of the day came on lap 20, when Noah Gragson spun on his own and smacked the wall. His assessment? He’d gotten into the wake of another car and lost grip.

Looks like Gragson spun while trying to pass Daniel Suarez on the outside. "Just too tight and I just jumped out of the gas too fast across his wake." https://t.co/WVH3C3zrr5
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) May 4, 2025

Not unlike a boat on the water, cars disturb the air around them and leave a wake behind. And just like a smaller boat bobbing in the wake of a larger one, the dirty air at worst make it hard to race the leading car and at worst, cause the trailing car to crash.

The finish wasn’t terrible, but had the series of late cautions not happened as they did, it probably would not have been. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible race—it played out naturally, if messily, and didn’t feel manipulated or overly predictable as there were comers and goers.

But it could easily have turned into a runaway for Larson or even McDowell, had there been a long green flag run at the end.

Why… should you be paying attention this week?

Excluding the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the next four Cup Series races are on intermediate ovals: Kansas Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Nashville Superspeedway and Michigan International Speedway.

Intermediates have been the Next Gen car’s best tracks in terms of competitive races and exciting finishes, so fans will be looking for a stretch of consistent races here.

Kansas, in particular, has benefitted from the Next Gen, with a few drivers standing out as favorites in this racecar. Hamlin will be looking for a rebound, and Kansas could be just what the doctor ordered. In six Next Gen races at the 1.5-mile oval, Hamlin has a win, six top 10s and an average finish of 3.7.

Other drivers with a top-10 Kansas average in the current car are Larson, Bowman and Chastain. Larson and Chastain have a win apiece in the current car

The hottest drivers at Kansas without a win to show for it? Bowman tops the list with a 7.2 average finish, but Blaney, Byron and Bell are all worth keeping an eye on.

How… did this race stack up?

While it’s probably not a race that most fans will be talking about in six months (unless they’re McDowell fans), it wasn’t the worst race we’ve seen in 2025.

In fact, in terms of close finishes, it was the closest non-superspeedway finish since Phoenix Raceway in March. It’s the fourth-closest race of 2025 so far, if you include Daytona International Speedway and Talladega in the count.

Despite Logano’s drive to the lead, had there been a few more laps, Chastain looked like he’d have had something to say about the outcome.

Over the course of a season, there are going to be a couple of great races, a handful of really good ones, another handful of really terrible ones, and a whole lot of races that aren’t going to make every highlight reel but don’t deserve to be relegated to the realm of the stinkers either. In reality, most races fall in that group, and Sunday’s certainly falls squarely among them.

Amy Henderson

Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.