The NASCAR Xfinity Series took center stage today at Watkins Glen International Raceway. Joey Logano won the pole with his teammate Brad Keselowski alongside. Kyle Busch was looking for his fourth straight win in a row.
Shortly after the green flag, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski lead the field down into turn 1. Logano easily gets the advantage through turns 3 and 4. Logano and Keselowski jumped out to a big lead early. There was action going on early, as Kyle Busch gets the third position through the carousel. Blake Koch gets loose in the bus stop and makes contact with Ross Chastain. Keselowski made it wide off the outer loop but ends up saving the car. Logano, also had troubles, as he got a little loose, but a caution comes out for debris on lap 9 in the inner loop. Kyle Busch suffered splitter problems as his bolts got loose. Some lead lap cars came down pit road during the caution. Busch came to fix the splitter.
Restart lap 13, Logano and Keselowski were once again on the front row. Keselowski got wide in turn 1, but ended up saving his car from making contact with the wall. Todd Bodine and TJ Bell make contact in turn 5. Bodine was able to get going again, but Bell couldn't as he brought out the caution one lap later. Leaders come down once more under caution, as they take four tires and fuel. Erik Jones won the race off pit road. Cody Ware suffered a penalty for too many men over the wall, and pitting through too many pit boxes.
Daniel Suarez and Trevor Bayne took the green flag as they stayed out. Suarez with the advantage beats Bayne to take the lead. One lap later, Ryan Sieg and Todd Bodine make contact to cause a big pileup in turns 3 and 4. Several cars including Kyle Busch, Darrell Wallace Jr, Nicolas Hammann, Tom Drissi, Blake Koch, JJ Yeley, and Scott Heckert had major damage to their cars. In fact, the red flag came out due too many cars involved the wreck. After a lengthy red flag, race leader Suarez brought his no.19 Toyota machine to pit road.
Restart lap 21, Ty Dillon and Trevor Bayne lead the field to the green flag. Dillon was able to get the lead after the start. But, Logano with a faster car, made the pass for the lead right before the bus stop, a couple of laps later.
Pit stops began to take place on lap 25, as Brennan Poole made his scheduled stop. Brendan Gaughan and Justin Allgaier made their stops a few laps later. Then Dillon finally made his pit stop as well. Brad Keselowski tried to make a pass on Bayne through the inner loop, but both make minor contact and Bayne goes spinning around. Bayne re-fired his car and no caution came out.
Although, a caution came out one lap later. BJ McLeod's car came to stop in the inner loop. Elliott Sadler also spun around in the bus stop. Joey Gase's car rolled to a stop as well during the caution flag period. Some cars pitted under yellow. These included Sadler, Kenny Habul, Cody Ware, and others.
Logano and Kyle Larson lead the field to the restart on lap 39. Logano grabs the lead, with Keselowski making a pass for second, and started to reel in the leader. After a action packed first half, Keselowski pitted with 35 to go, as he takes four tires and fuel. And so does Trevor Bayne who pitted for fuel only. Race leader Logano made his stop one lap later.
As the field were making their stops, a caution came out with 32 to go, as Erik Jones who ran out of fuel before the bus stop. The leaders who didn't stop came down pit road. Kenny Habul and Derrike Cope were sent to the tail for going through too many pit boxes. Right when the caution came out, Ty Dillon had a commitment cone violation, meaning once he crossed the pit road line he came back out. Which is illegal by NASCAR.
Larson and Suarez took the green flag with 27 to go. Suarez goes to the lead with help from Joey Logano. But Suarez gets wide in the outer loop and Logano retakes the lead. Suarez started to slip back as Keselowski passed him for second one lap later. Derrike Cope with 25 to go had big damage to his car, as the tire blew out and brought out the caution. Cope ended up being ok from the incident.
The race restarted with 21 to go. Logano and Keselowski battled side-by-side through turns 3 and 4, as well as the back straight, before Logano out-braked Keselowski in the middle of the bus stop. Keselowski came back and battled hard for the lead in the remaining laps of the race. But with 9 to go, Keselowski's track bar broke in the inner loop. He tried to stay out there as long as he could, before bringing the car down to pit road with 7 to go. Spencer Gallagher also spun around with 5 to go.
With a hard charging Paul Menard, Logano was able to hold him off to win the Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen International Raceway.
This was Logano's second consecutive win at Watkins Glen in the Xfinity Series. Also scoring his 26th career Xfinity win.
Logano led three times for 67 laps.
There was 6 cautions for 18 laps and one red flag, with 28 cars finishing at the end of the race.
There was also five leaders among 9 lead changes.
Brennan Poole was the highest finishing rookie in the race.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Road America next Saturday for the Mid-Ohio 200.
No comments:
Post a Comment