(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Joey Logano didn’t come to play games in Saturday’s Weather Guard Truck Race on Dirt.
Driving for ThorSport Racing, the 32-year-old made quick work of the field, leading 138 of 150 laps to record his second career NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series victory.
It’s Logano’s second victory on the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway. He won the inaugural Food City Dirt Race in 2021 in the NASCAR Cup Series.
“It was pretty uneventful. We had a really fast F-150,” Logano told the media after the race. “You’re always kind of concerned going into the race. It’s a team I’ve never driven with before and there’s no practice and you hope the truck drives close and you go out there and go for it. Last night, we were on the phone talking about how we get in the race if it rains out the heat races and is there an opportunity for something like that. Thank goodness it stayed dry enough to get the heat races in and eventually the whole race and be able to have a good showing.”
Logano won his qualifying heat after rolling off fifth to earn a fourth-place starting spot in the field. It took Logano just two laps to get to the point, pulling away from teammate Ty Majeski to win Stage 1.
Matt DiBenedetto stayed out after the stage and led 10 laps, but Logano quickly regained his advantage on Lap 52. He cruised to a Stage 2 victory and led every lap in the final stage for the convincing victory.
“[The ThorSport] trucks were so fast and obviously we saw that again here today,” Logano said. “They just have a lot of speed and a lot of drive in it to be able to accelerate off the corners really, really well. Whatever that is, I can’t tell you, but they were fast.
“The outside lane was a big piece of it. I found a couple things inside the truck that was helping me as well, kind of being the control car helps a lot when you can kind of go when you need to go and there’s not much drive at all. It’s funny how Bristol you can throw dirt on it and it can act very similar to what it does with concrete. I don’t get it. Like, you think the track would be completely different, but the way the lanes work on restarts and even as it goes along it’s very similar surprisingly. I don’t know how that happens, but it’s been pretty consistent the last few years.”
(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
Logano had a familiar voice in his ear, but not someone he was used to as an eye in the sky. Cup Series teammate Ryan Blaney spotted Logano on Saturday as Logano’s usual spotter, Coleman Pressley, spotted for Tanner Gray.
Blaney registered his first NASCAR win as a spotter and relayed positive information to Logano in the process.
“Anytime you put a race car driver up there, which that’s why a lot of the spotters used to be race car drivers,” Logano explained. “They understand what you’re looking for as far as speed, and honestly, Ryan knows what he wants to hear on the radio, which I typically want to hear a lot more than him, so I was trying to get him to keep talking more and more, which he was.
“Line-wise he was able to see some things in [turns] three and four that as he leader you don’t get to follow anybody and see. Majeski was entering a little bit higher and being able to turn down across the track and he did a good job explaining that to me and was able to adjust that line and that made the difference a lot. He was starting to close the gap on us speed-wise and that kind of made the difference for us.”
Logano hopes he can parlay his success to Sunday, where he’ll start 12th in the Cup Series race.
“We were a little bit too tight in the heat race,” Logano said about his Cup car. “I couldn’t get it to rotate and I was needing to horse it too much to get it to pivot, and then I was trying to pass cars and lost spots, so I just had to regroup and change it. But I think we’ll be fine. We just have to adjust the balance a little bit.”
Majeski ran in second nearly all day, finishing in that position in each stage and at the end of the race. He earned his fifth top-10 in six races and maintained his lead in driver’s points.
“We were just a little bit off all night. William Byron got past me on that last restart. I was actually able to get a pretty good launch with Joey. He almost didn’t clear me into one, but, overall, a really good race for us and a good points day.
“We’re hitting on all cylinders right now and we legitimately have fun going to the racetrack together. I think some of that gets lost in NASCAR. It’s a job to everybody, but we’re having fun doing this and the guys are going that extra little bit at the shop to make these race trucks the best that we can make them. We’re having fun doing this.”
(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
Byron finished third in a one-off for Kyle Busch Motorsports, a team he won seven races for in 2016. He ran in third for much of the day, crossing the line in the same position at the end of each stage.
There were four lead changes and a total of 11 cautions for 66 laps. Twenty-eight of 36 cars were running at the end of the race. Tyler Carpenter, Christian Eckes, Parker Kligerman, Kris Wright, Tyler Ankrum, Taylor Gray, Mason Massey and Stefan Parsons did not finish.
Results
STAGE 1: Joey Logano, Ty Majeski, William Byron, Kaden Honeycutt, Matt Crafton, Hailie Deegan, Grant Enfinger, Zane Smith, Stewart Friesen, Parker Kligerman
STAGE 2: Joey Logano, Ty Majeski, William Byron, Stewart Friesen, Matt DiBenedetto, Tanner Gray, Matt Crafton, Zane Smith, Chase Briscoe, Bret Holmes
STAGE 3: Joey Logano, Ty Majeski, William Byron, Matt Crafton, Grant Enfinger, Jake Garcia, Chase Briscoe, Tanner Gray, Kaden Honeycutt, Matt DiBenedetto
