Joey Logano celebrates his first win at Watkins Glen. [Joe Jennings Photo]
Watkins Glen, N. Y. – Joey Logano bounced back from an early race mishap to win the wild and woolly Zippo 200 at The Glen, a NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday. Starting from the pole, Logano took charge, leading 39 of the 82 laps with his only competition coming from teammate Brad Keselowski, who led 40 circuits.
While the Team Penske Ford team totally dominated the race, each driver had to overcome an issue to prevail at the end. On his first pit stop, Logano exited the pits with his gas can attached, triggering a penalty. Later on, Keselowski sustained a pit road speeding penalty.
“To put the Snap-On Ford on the pole, lead a lot of laps and win the race is very special and feels very good, too,” said Logano who won for the 25th time in Xfinity Series action and scored for first time at The Glen.
Added crew chief Todd Gordon, “We had a lot of fun today and it was a very straight-forward race. We had our Cup pit crew out there, and it helps us out for tomorrow. We had a couple of situations but Joey came through for us, and it was a great tune-up for tomorrow.”
Keselowski ended up second 1.066 seconds back.
“It was kind of an up-and-down day,” Keselowski said. “Joey was really, really fast and we knew that. He had a little bit of trouble himself on pit road and drove through the field so quickly that he was running lap times I think three or four tenths faster than I was when we were leading. It was just all I could do to really keep up with him there at the end, but I fought through some issues there. I made a mistake on pit road and I finally figured something out and just over-figured it out. All-in-all I think I was probably a tad bit slower than Joey was and made a few too many mistakes, but mistakes are part of these XFINITY races.”
Series point leader Chris Buescher brought his Ford home third and came away with a 24 point advantage over Chase Elliott, who finished seventh. “It was a good point’s day for us,” he said.
Popular driver Boris Said started ninth and persevered in his Toyota to finish fourth.
Ty Dillon fought hard to finish fifth and was involved in a post-race skirmish with Regan Smith, the latter being highly upset with Dillon over a run-in midway through the race.
Smith, a title contender, ended up 20th.
Sixth through 10th were Brian Scott, Elliott, Elliott Sadler, Paul Menard and Brendan Gaughan.
Seven caution flags slowed the race for 20 laps. Also, a red flag stopped the race for 10 minutes due to a heavy crash without injury.