It has become one of the axioms of this era of NASCAR Cup Series racing. Never count out Joey Logano in an even-numbered year.
That saying came to fruition on a warm and muggy Sunday night (July 19) at North Wilkesboro Speedway when the No. 22 Team Penske squad awakened from their early-season slumber. Logano thoroughly dominated the Window World 450 to earn his 38th career Cup Series win, breaking a tie with Bobby Isaac for 23rd on the all-time list. The victory also snapped a 45-race winless streak for the three-time Cup champion.
On this week’s Stat Sheet, we break down the most noteworthy numbers and data from a full weekend of racing in the North Carolina foothills.
323: Laps Led by Joey Logano
When a driver has been around as long and accomplished so much in his career as Logano has, new career highs can be hard to come by.
But that’s exactly what the Middletown, Conn., native did, leading 323 of the possible 450 laps, a career-best for most laps led in a single race.
Logano’s previous single-race high was the 309 laps led at the Martinsville Speedway fall race in 2018, which also resulted in a win. In fact, among his 10 highest laps led totals, six have ended in victory lane. One even clinched a championship when he led 187 laps in the 2022 Cup championship race at Phoenix Raceway.
The one glaring, notable exception to good finishes on the chart was the 2015 Martinsville Speedway fall race, which Logano dominated until his infamous incident in turn 1 with Matt Kenseth that marked the beginning of the end for his title hopes that year.
49: Laps Led by Shane van Gisbergen
Don’t look now, but Shane van Gisbergen is becoming a bona fide contender on the ovals.
Starting in the eighth position thanks to the lineup being set per the NASCAR rulebook, SVG stayed there throughout the race and ultimately took the checkered flag in fifth.
Sunday marked the second career top-five finish on an oval for the New Zealander. Furthermore, SVG’s 49 laps led are the most ever for him in a Cup oval race.
Overall, van Gisbergen has registered double-digit laps led in three oval races so far in his Cup career. Those three races have two other things in common: they’ve all come this season, and they’ve all resulted in a finish of 11th or better for van Gisbergen.
If he sustains this level of performance on ovals, van Gisbergen could very well be on his way to the Chase, growing his gap over the cut line to 54 points leaving North Wilkesboro.
6: Cars on Lead Lap
Between the extended race length of 450 laps and only three cautions for incidents, there were some lengthy green flag runs on Sunday. Consequently, the lead lap turned out to be an exclusive club of six by the end of the night.
Along with race winner Logano, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, SVG and Bubba Wallace made up the entirety of the lead lap at the checkered flag.
This was the fewest number of lead lap cars in a Cup race since the 2024 spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway. On that day, a mere five drivers finished on the lead lap in a race won by Hamlin.
For the last time a Cup race finished with exactly six cars on the lead lap, you have to go back nearly a full decade to the playoff race at Dover Motor Speedway in the fall of 2016. Martin Truex Jr. took the checkered flag that day.
6th: Average Finish for Todd Gilliland at Indianapolis
Turning to the In-Season Challenge, the sold-out crowd at North Wilkesboro bore witness to a semifinal upset as Todd Gilliland upended Chase Elliott, finishing eighth to Elliott’s 17th.
Gilliland’s Cinderella run through the ISC bracket will come to a head in the champions round next Sunday (July 26) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Many are predicting that Ryan Blaney, currently third in Cup points, will outrun his Ford teammate Gilliland fairly easily at The Brickyard to capture the $1 million cash prize for Team Penske.
However, I would not be so quick to look past Gilliland. The driver of the No. 34 Ford boasts an average finish of sixth on the legendary 2.5-mile oval at IMS. Now, that does come with one caveat as Gilliland has two career starts in the Brickyard 400, but it is nonetheless something to think about going into next weekend.
Blaney, meanwhile, has an average finish of 16.4 in eight prior Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval starts, placing him 14th among active drivers. Based on those numbers, Gilliland could have a more than decent shot to complete his underdog run to the In-Season Challenge title.
8.479: Margin of Victory (in seconds) for Chandler Smith
We do not normally mention the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series here on Stat Sheet, but with the series also in action at North Wilkesboro last Saturday (July 18), there was one stat from that race worth mentioning.
Similar to Logano on the Cup side, Chandler Smith put a hurting on the field, leading 105 of 250 laps in his No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford. Unlike Logano, who won by less than a second over Hamlin, Smith distanced himself from the field with a margin of victory of 8.479 seconds over teammate Layne Riggs.
Saturday’s race was the largest margin of victory in a short track race in Truck Series history, a record book that goes back more than three decades to the inaugural season in 1995, which, by the way, was almost entirely comprised of short tracks.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 and is currently an editor and a weekly writer of Stat Sheet. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.