Logano Scores ‘Clutch’ Talladega Win

For Joey Logano, winning at Talladega Superspeedway wasn’t a necessity to advance in the Chase, but it sure didn’t hurt.

Logano led 45 of 192 laps after surviving two late cautions to take his second win of the season on what was a dominating day for Team Penske.

“It feels good to win on a clutch moment like that,” Logano said in victory lane. “To come in here with the pressure on, this team excels when that happens. What an awesome race.”

While Logano celebrated in victory lane, teammate Brad Keselowski ended his day in the garage after leading a race high 90 laps. Twice in the race Keselowski had to drop from the lead to get debris off the grille, and the second time, it was too late. Keselowski let the No. 21 of Ryan Blaney pass for the lead, but the debris damaged the engine too much, and it let go officially on Lap 144.

“It was a lot of fun to be leading at Talladega.  I really like this track,” said Keselowski. “It’s been good to us and there are a lot of great fans here today.  We were doing the best we could to make a show of it and have some fun and lead some laps and just happy and proud to have a fast car.

“I’m not an engine guy, but the car was really strong and we definitely kept finding debris. I thought I got it cooled off and only got it slightly over (heated), but I don’t know,” he said.

Keselowski wasn’t the only Chaser whose championship hopes went up in smoke. Martin Truex, Jr., arguably the favorite to win the championship, lost his engine shortly after the first round of green flag pit stops concluded on Lap 40. The engine failure dropped him from 13 points above the cutline to 18 points below at the end of the day.

Although the limelight was on the Chase drivers throughout the day, several tried to steal that limelight near the conclusion of the race. Rookie Brian Scott was one of those drivers, and Scott finished a career-best second.

Denny Hamlin secured a third-place finish, which was just enough to nab the final spot in the Round of 8 over Austin Dillon. Hamlin and Dillon tied on points, but the No. 11 team wins the tiebreaker by having the better finish in the Round of 12. Dillon’s best finish of the round came at Kansas with a sixth.

Kurt Busch and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. rounded out the top-five followed by Kyle Larson, Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola, Austin Dillon and A.J. Allmendinger.

Chase Elliott joins Dillon, Keselowski and Truex as the Chasers to fall out of the title hunt. Elliott entered the day in a must-win scenario to advance in the Chase, but just couldn’t get his No. 24 car to the front when it counted at the end.

Despite riding in the back all day, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch brought him 28th, 29th and 30th-place finishes, which was good enough to put four Joe Gibbs Toyotas in the next round. The teammates decided to try to avoid the melee of restrictor plate racing by riding in the back even though the normally inevitable ‘big one’ didn’t happen.