Joey Logano won the Ambetter Health 400 with a mostly dominant performance Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Logano led for 140 of 260 laps, earning his long-awaited first victory in Atlanta. It still required a close finish, with Logano edging Brad Keselowski on a push from Corey LaJoie during the final lap to secure his first victory of the year. Logano has three top-10 finishes in five races.
“We’ve been so close so many times here,” Logano, 32, said. “To get a win here means so much to me, all of the memories.” Logano spent a lot of time in Atlanta when he was climbing the ladder, citing it as an important place as he worked to realize his goals. “This one here is for those kids. It just shows you keep working hard and chasing your dreams,” he said. “The dream of driving that Cup car into Victory Lane came true today.”
Christopher Bell finished third, followed by LaJoie (a career-best finish) and Tyler Reddick. Sunday was a good day for Ford, which had three drivers in the top 10 (Logano, Keselowski; Ryan Blaney, seventh). A Chevy driver had won the prior four NASCAR Cup Series races this season.
This was Logano’s 19th race in Atlanta since 2009. He had five top-10 finishes here prior to Sunday, including placing second in September 2013. Finally, he earned the victory that’s eluded him. He’d led in 207 laps in Atlanta during his career before holding pole position for 140 laps Sunday. It was his 32nd win overall.
“Lane versus lane, that’s what it was,” Logano said of his battle with friend Keselowski on the last lap. “Inside versus outside. ... I know Brad really well, on and off the racetrack. I know he’s going to do anything to win a race and rightfully so. I wouldn’t say our racing mentalities are very different. That’s why I feel like we get along well, but we also clash on the track every now and again. Not very often but we both race really, really hard.
“It’s fun racing with him because you have the idea of what he’s thinking, a little bit. But also, his spotter TJ (Majors) was my spotter for years, so I have an idea what information TJ is feeding him. It just worked out for us.”
Down the stretch, two wrecks knocked out the leaders. Kevin Harvick, who earned his first win at AMS in 2001, took the lead with 72 laps to go but was pinballed in a wreck that ended his afternoon. It began when Ross Chastain closed on Harvick, though both drivers noted Chastain didn’t make contact with Harvick’s car (“Just a weird deal,” Harvick said on the Fox broadcast).
Josh Berry, Harrison Burton, William Byron, Chris Buescher and BJ McLeod were among others involved in the wreck. Berry suffered damage in the collision but stayed on the track and finished 18th. He replaced Hendrick’s Chase Elliott, the Dawsonville native who won the last Cup Series race here in July but has been out with a broken tibia.
An accident then occurred with 51 laps to go, taking out leaders Aric Almirola and Kyle Larson, who slammed hard into the wall. Larson was seeking his third top-five finish, while Almirola potentially missed out on his first.
Logano led for the first 60 laps, earning his first stage victory of the season. Austin Cindric, another Ford driver, collected his first stage win in Stage 2. Cindric finished 11th. The race featured 20 lead changes, 13 different leaders and five cautions.
Byron, who won here last March, was eliminated after suffering damage during the big collision. He’d won his previous two races and was the betting favorite Sunday. This was the third race at the repaved AMS. Logano joined Byron and Elliott as the winners on the remade track, which debuted last March. “There weren’t many wrecks at all, it was really solid racing,” Logano said. “Much better than the last time we were here.”
AMS races often bring out notable Atlanta athletes. This time, several Falcons attended, including quarterback Desmond Ridder – likely the team’s Week 1 starter – and former Bulldogs Lorenzo Carter and John FitzPatrick. The AMS crowd was smaller than usual, perhaps partly due to the chillier weather (mid-40s during the afternoon).
The Cup Series returns to Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 9 for the Quaker State 400. Elliott won the event last summer, his first hometown victory.
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