By David Morgan, Associate Editor
HAMPTON, Ga. – The first ticket to the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs has been punched.
Joey Logano, with a helping hand from his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney in the closing laps of regulation, advanced to the front of the field, set to square off against the Trackhouse Racing duo of Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain in a battle to the finish.
However, the caution flag would fly with two laps remaining, pushing the race into overtime, with Logano able to keep his wingman in tow for the overtime restart.
Logano and Suarez would stay side-by-side for the first lap of overtime, but when Chastain lost contact with Suarez, Blaney gave his teammate the shove of all shoves, boosting him into the lead heading into Turn 1 for the final time.
From there, Logano was able to play defense as Blaney, Suarez and the others behind were unable to mount a charge to take him down before the start/finish line, leaving the two-time Cup Series champion to streak across the line and advance to the second round.
“Man, incredible execution from the team. When it’s Playoff time, it’s our time,” Logano said. “As I said, we got to always get the level up when it comes Playoff time.
“The gave me a great Autotrader Mustang. She was fast all day. Got stuck in the back a little bit. It was hard to get track position back. Had a good restart and got towards the front. Had my teammate Blaney behind me. That really helped out in the last lap to be able to make sure a Penske car won, ultimately move on to the next round.
“Good day for all the Penske cars. Got a lot of stage points as well. Pretty good day today. This is Autotrader’s home in Atlanta, Coca-Cole’s home in Atlanta. A lot of people here. It’s important for us to run good at this track.
“There’s a lot of memories right here at this start/finish line for me racing Legends cars as a kid. This is really a cool feeling to be out here in a Cup car again.”
Suarez would best Blaney at the line for second, with Blaney finishing the day in third.
“Definitely not satisfied,” Suarez said of coming so close to pulling off the season sweep at Atlanta.
“I am happy with it, but not satisfied. I lost my pusher, my teammate. He was doing a great job, and I felt like we were going to have a great shot at it. Ross was doing an amazing job of pushing, and I don’t know if he got a flat tire or something, but once I lost him, I knew it was going to be tough. But, that is part of racing, right?”
Blaney’s podium finish was a rebound for his No. 12 team after getting involved in a crash on Lap 205 when Chris Buescher broke loose and tagged the left-rear of Blaney’s Ford, sending him spinning back across the track where he would collide with Martin Truex, Jr.
Truex got the worse end of the incident with Blaney, fading to 35th at the end of the race as the damage left him in a state to just have to limp it home.
Meanwhile, Blaney was able to escape with cosmetic damage, climbing back through the field in the late stages of the race to put him in position to challenge for the win in overtime.
“Honestly, I can’t believe we got back up to where we did,” Blaney said. “The 12 boys did a really good job of fixing it. I’m surprised it didn’t have more damage than what it did. From my seat, I got drilled in the left-rear, or the door I guess where it hit me, and then the right-rear got off the fence.
“I didn’t know how damaged we were, but I was able to carve up through traffic and kind of get through the middle pretty good. I’m really proud of the effort. I had a thought of going three-wide on the frontstretch and I’m like, ‘Man, this is gonna be tight and we’ve already had a really good day going, great points and all that stuff,’ so third is a really good day.
“I appreciate Dent Wizard doing what they do, Menards, Advance Auto Parts, DEX Imaging, the Wurth group, Discount Tire. We’ll move on to Watkins Glen. I’m really happy. Like I said, this thing looks ugly, but a really good finish so I’m proud of the effort by everybody.”
All, but one of the remainder of the top-10 finishers would be comprised of Playoff contenders, with Christopher Bell in fourth, Alex Bowman in fifth, Tyler Reddick in sixth, Chase Elliott in eighth, William Byron in ninth, and Austin Cindric in 10th.
Kyle Busch was the best of the non-Playoff drivers in seventh place.
The remaining Playoff drivers would come home in 17th (Ty Gibbs), 19th (Brad Keselowski), 24th (Denny Hamlin), 31st (Harrison Burton), 35th (Martin Truex, Jr.), 37th (Kyle Larson), and 38th (Chase Briscoe).
Hamlin would be involved in a last lap crash that also collected Harrison Burton after struggling throughout the day following an engine issue in qualifying that left him starting shotgun on the field.
“I thought at the very end we got the Mavis Tire Camry kind of where it needed to be, but by then, you were kind of dealing with a log jam of a couple of lanes that are kind of blocking things and you couldn’t go much of anywhere, so I just tried to avoid the wrecks,” Hamlin said.
“I was trying to get 20 points out of the day. That was my goal – just get 20 however we could, obviously, starting in the back didn’t help with that. We did the best we could, and then got in a wreck that probably cost us eight to 10 spots or so.”
Larson and Briscoe saw an early exit to the race after a crash on Lap 57 collected both drivers.
The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs roll on to Watkins Glen next weekend with Logano now locked in and Blaney the best of the rest, carrying a 45-point advantage over the cut-off line with two races remaining in the Round of 16.
Bell (+40), Reddick (+33), Byron (+33), Bowman (+27), Cindric (+27), Elliott (+24), Suarez (+22), Larson (+15), Hamlin (+2), and Gibbs (+1) leave Atlanta as the current top-12 in points.
Keselowski (-1) now sits in 13th, followed by Burton (-16), Truex (-19), and Briscoe (-21) as the four in danger of elimination after race No. 1.
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