After 312 laps and one NASCAR Overtime, the No. 22 of Joey Logano led 60 laps en route to his victory at Phoenix Raceway. After re-taking the lead with 20 laps to go, nobody could get past Logano.
“Two wins already in the books, we got to keep this thing rocking,” said Logano, in his post-race interview with FOX Sports.
Following behind Logano was the No. 4 of Kevin Harvick, the No. 18 of Kyle Busch, the No. 42 of Kyle Larson, and rounding out the top-five was the No. 14 of Clint Bowyer.
The saying, ”cautions breed cautions,” could not be more accurate, and we saw that today. The first caution was brought out on lap 58, by the No. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., when he went for a spin in turn-two. The following caution flew with ten laps to go in stage one, when the No. 11 of Denny Hamlin got tight and tagged the No. 2 of Brad Keselowski, collecting the No. 12 of Ryan Blaney, ultimately ending Blaney’s day. The third caution came out ten laps later, as the No. 4 of Kevin Harvick crossed the start/finish line for the end of stage one.
Midway through the second stage, the No. 3 of Austin Dillon took a hard hit to the wall, sending him to the garage on lap 131, bringing out the fourth caution. The fifth caution came out as the green/white checkered flag was about to fly for the conclusion of the second stage, when the No. 51 of Garrett Smithley’s engine blew up in the dogleg.
The sixth caution of the day was drawn on lap 213, when the No. 00 of Quin Houff had his engine expire. 39 laps after the Houff incident, the No. 20 of Erik Jones spun and made contact with the outside wall leading to the seventh caution. 13 laps later, the No. 8 of Tyler Reddick, who was having a stellar day, slammed the outside wall, which ended his day after running second just a few laps before the accident.
Lap 277 brought trouble to the No. 17 of Chris Buescher, as he made contact with the wall after a left-front tire rub cut a tire. Shortly after, the No. 19 of Martin Truex Jr. had contact with the No. 10 of Aric Almirola shooting Truex Jr. into the turn-two wall, sending him to the garage. The eleventh caution gave way on lap 304, when the No. 6 of Ross Chastain was involved in a single car spin in the dogleg. Lastly, the twelfth and final caution of the day flew because of an incident between Stenhouse Jr. and the No. 38 of John Hunter Nemechek.
The NASCAR Cup Series will be back on track March 15th at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, for the running of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. Coverage of the race begins at 2:00p.m. EST on FOX.
Stage 1 Winner: Kevin Harvick
Stage 2 Winner: Brad Keselowski
Race Winner: Joey Logano
