LAS VEGAS — Joey Logano held off teammate Brad Keselowski on Sunday to win the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Logano drove his Team Penske Ford to his 22nd career victory and his first of the season, narrowly answering Keselowski’s final-lap passing attempt down the stretch. Logano had by no means won a Cup race in Vegas in eleven tries all through his first ten complete-time seasons, although he won an Xfinity Series race on the tune in 2017.
The first race under NASCAR’s completely new regulations bundle produced a warning-loose event that still had some thrilling motion up the front, including more than one wild restart after the two-phase breaks. “What a super race,” Logano said. “Brad and I have been so calmly matched, and also, you can’t pull away (below the new guidelines). My coronary heart continues to be walking.” Keselowski drove up from 19th to take the lead with 27 laps left. However, his hopes for back-to-back victories had been dashed while Logano passed him while getting held up by using lapped visitors.
“I’d want to have one more lap,” Keselowski said. “It became great warfare, and we have been both combating, in reality, tough at the top. It appeared as it got down to what the lapped vehicles were going to do.” Kyle Busch finished third, unable to recover from a mid-race speeding penalty inside the native land driver’s quest for the 1/3 three-race weekend sweep in NASCAR records. “If we didn’t have the rushing penalty on pit avenue, we’d have won this race,” Busch said. “The driving force threw it away.”
Busch gained the Trucks race Friday and the Xfinity event Saturday, giving him 197 victories in all three series. He has won only one Cup race in Vegas, and he lamented his mistake after rushing down pit street. Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick changed into fourth, and Kurt Busch completed 5th for the Las Vegas locals’ first top-five finish at his domestic tune for the reason since 2005. Fords took five of the top seven spots. NASCAR debuted everything of its new rules package, designed to foster tighter racing and better passing. Drivers are expected to be in large packs of racers with masses of lead modifications due to the decreased speeds and accelerated downforce. However, the adjustments didn’t lead to any massive wrecks.
