Picking up his second victory of the season and the 10th of his career, Logano crossed the finish line 5.273 seconds ahead of Kyle Busch.
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The 90th and final lap was the only one Logano of Team Penske led on the 2.45-mile road course.
Harvick put up a good fight leading 29 of the last 30 laps – except the final corner coming to the checkered flag when the No. 4 Budweiser Chevy ran out of gas.
Busch, needing a spot in the top 30 in points to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup (only four races remain in the regular season), planned on a late-race caution to bunch the field and opted to race conservatively in order to have enough fuel if the race ended up going extra laps. Crew chief Todd Gordon knew Logano had more fuel than Harvick and instructed his driver to press the issue for the lead in the closing laps.
“Based on yesterday, I felt the auto was really solid and we could get a little bit more out of it, ” the four-time Cup champion said.
Polesitter AJ Allmendinger lead the majority of the race’s first stint, but his race fell off the rails soon afterward: His #47 Chevrolet stalled on track in the middle of a caution about halfway through the race, and was the first to run out of fuel when the race resumed. Despite the win, Logano made up only four points on the leader and is now 42 off the pace. In ten races at Watkins Glen, Carl has only finished outside of the top ten on 3 occasions and I think this weekend might be the ideal time for him to get to Victory Lane. On Sunday Gordon has the chance to become the first NASCAR driver to win 10 races at a road course. “I had a good first lap, but everyone picks up so much on their second lap that you’ve got to go out and run again”. “Really, I was just running as fast as I needed to”. We are all about the things you can control and from that standpoint we are just trying to improve the performance of the auto slightly.
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Finishing fourth behind Harvick was Matt Kenseth, followed by Kurt Busch. “But I’m happy the vehicle was fast”.
If there was ever any doubt that NASCAR should add another road course to its 36-race season and include one of those in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship it was erased on Sunday afternoon at Watkins Glen global.
But by the end of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Logano’s vehicle was comfortably at the front of the field. The race was red-flagged during that caution for 9:03 after fluid was dumped on the track from Jamie McMurray’s Chevy after he got into Logano on the Lap 50 restart. “It was a good point’s day for us”, he said.
Stewart missed the previous two Cup races at The Glen.
Xfinity Series title contender Regan Smith suffered the brunt of the damage, getting the short end of run-ins with both Ty Dillon and Brendan Gaughan. He will start in sixth position today, which is a big key on a road course.
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Truex lost the lead when he pitted under the first caution, with Keselowski and others benefiting from stopping shortly before that.
