Kansas City, Kan. – Joey Logano punched his ticket into the Eliminator Round of the 2014 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup winning Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. While Logano celebrated, some of the biggest names in the sport left Kansas facing potential elimination.
It was Logano’s career-high fifth win of the season and second in the Chase. The race was the first race of the three-race Contender Round with the winner earning the automatic berth to the next round. Logano dominated the second-half of the race, leading 122 of the final 144 laps.
“Beginning of the race, we were okay,” said Logano. “The car was a little loose, once the top lane (of the track) rubbered in, the car came to life and we tuned the car to the top after that and were able to plug along pretty good up there.”
In general as more rubber gets down into various racing grooves they can become more usable for different drivers and that’s what happened Sunday for Logano.
“We came in to here thinking we need a solid finish; we can’t win the championship today, but we can definitely lose it,” said Logano.
And with Logano moving on, many of the top teams in the sport suffered terrible results at Kansas:
-Jimmie Johnson had an early race crash that resulted in a 40th-place finish.
-Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a tire failure that sent him into the wall and a 39th-place finish.
-Logano’s teammate Brad Keselowski also suffered a tire failure and crash, resulting in a 36th place finish.
Entering the upcoming race at Charlotte, they are the bottom-three drivers in the Contender Round. The bottom four in points, providing none of them win in the next two races, will be eliminated following next week’s race at Talladega.
On Sunday, Team
Flowmaster Driver and rookie of the year contender Kyle Larson finished second, third was Kyle Busch with Martin Truex Jr. and Carl Edwards completing the top five.
Flowmaster is the Exclusive Performance Exhaust of NASCAR and many of the top teams in the sport have the company’s decal on the side of their car. Team
Flowmaster Drivers have won 20 of the 30 races this season as well as the Sprint Unlimited and the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.
Top-10 Finishers:
1. Joey Logano
2. Kyle Larson**
3. Kyle Busch**
4. Martin Truex Jr.
5. Carl Edwards**
6. Ryan Newman**
7. Denny Hamlin**
8. Austin Dillon**
9. Paul Menard
10. Brian Vickers
**Indicated Team
Flowmaster Driver
Next Race: Bank of America 500, Charlotte Motor Speedway
Saturday, October 12, 2014