Joey Logano gets his 27th career win at Bristol Motor Speedway

Shortly after the Camping World Truck Series race, it was the Cup Series turn to race the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway. Rain postponed the race on Sunday, and a metric qualifying system set the field with Kyle Larson on the pole. Larson would start the race in the back for an engine change. Ryan Blaney now had the pole position. Matt DiBenedetto and Michael McDowell (unapproved adjustments) also joined Larson in the back.

Denny Hamlin led the opening lap before Kyle Busch took the lead on the second lap. While leading, Kyle Busch’s car was covered in mud and started to overheat. He would pit with Martin Truex Jr. taking the lead on the ninth lap. Eight laps later, Truex notified his crew chief that his car’s temperature was rising. On lap 41, Aric Almirola attempted to go around Stewart Friesen and lost control and spun. This caused multiple wrecks that involved Corey LaJoie, Anthony Alfredo, Shane Golobic, and Stewart Friesen.

The red flag was displayed a short time later for clean-up. The red flag lasted six minutes before the caution would come back out. Ryan Preece was the only driver to pit during the caution. The race resumed on lap 46. The restart lasted a couple of laps before the third caution came out for another wreck when William Byron hit Ryan Newman, causing Newman to spin. Cars were trying to avoid the wreck. Kevin Harvick swerved to the right while Chase Briscoe, who was coming up in that lane, impacted the wall. Both cars suffered some damage. Instead of throwing the yellow caution flag, NASCAR elected to use this as the competition caution.

Everyone pitted during the caution. The drivers did not have to worry about maintaining their positions. The running order was frozen, and teams had three minutes to work on their cars. Once the caution was over, the race resumed on lap 51. The race became more challenging for the drivers as they had to battle the sun and the dirt clouds that would now impair their vision, making it harder to drive. Two laps into the restart, Christopher Bell spun and collected Kyle Larson. At the same time, Kevin Harvick, Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were also involved in the crash that brought out the fourth caution.

Harvick, Larson, and Briscoe all pitted during the caution. The race resumed on lap 60. Martin Truex pulled away on the restart and began putting cars a lap down, including Austin Dillon. Truex led the last 41 laps to win stage one.

No one went to pit road during the caution, and the race resumed on lap 102 to start stage two. While Truex was out in front, Daniel Suarez was quietly closing in on him, and on lap 135, he passed Truex for the lead. Fourteen laps later, Suarez bumped Kyle Larson out of the way and put him a lap down. Larson was not happy about it and bumped him back but also further damaged his car. Two laps later, the second competition caution came out on lap 151.

Everyone went to pit road during the caution. Suarez was still the lead when the race resumed on lap 152. On the same lap, another wreck happened when Kyle Busch hit Ryan Blaney, sending Blaney spinning and taking other cars with them. The other drivers involved were Austin Dillon, Quin Houff, Kyle Larson, Michael McDowell, Ryan Preece, Alex Bowman, Cody Ware, and JJ Yeley to bring out the race’s seventh caution.

No one went to pit road during the caution, and the race resumed on lap 159. Once again, the restart only lasted a couple of laps before the race’s eighth caution came out on lap 160 after Chase Briscoe hit Brad Keselowski before losing control and hitting the inside wall. Because visibility was terrible on the track, NASCAR changed the rules, and now the races would restart in a single file for the first time since 2009. The race resumed on lap 170.

On the same lap, Denny Hamlin took third place from Truex and was now chasing Joey Logano, who was in second. Sixteen laps into the restart, a pair of teammates got together when Cody Ware spun after making contact with JJ Yeley to bring out the race’s ninth caution. No one went to pit road during the caution, and the race resumed on lap 192.

A lap into the restart, Suarez battled Logano to maintain the lead. Still, Logano got by him with seven laps to go in stage two. Logano led the last seven laps to win stage two. Everyone went to pit road during the caution. They were given ten minutes to work on their cars while the track crews worked on the track.

Once the track crews finished the track, the final stage got underway on lap 202. On the same lap, Hamlin got by Suarez for second place. Six laps later, he would battle Logano for the lead but was unsuccessful.

Many drivers were cutting tires down throughout this race, and Bubba Wallace was the latest driver to cut a left rear and spun. No caution came out, and Wallace went two laps down. Late in the race, Hamlin was doing all he could to get to Logano. However, he went up the racetrack only to hit the wall. Luckily for him, the eleventh caution came out when Mike Marlar’s car cut a right rear tire, sending the race to overtime. The race resumed on lap 252.

Hamlin was doing all he could to catch Logano. Still, he would lose the second spot to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as Logano would win his 27th career Cup Series race by .554 seconds.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Denny Hamlin third, Daniel Suarez fourth, Ryan Newman fifth, William Byron sixth, Tyler Reddick seventh, Ryan Blaney eighth, Erik Jones ninth, and Chase Elliott tenth. Martin Truex Jr. led 126 laps, the most in the race, and ten cautions for 39 laps.

The Cup Series will return in a couple of weeks at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, April 10th, at 7:30 pm on FS1.

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