Lucky Logano Wins Nashville

Ally 400:

Joey Logano captured the checkered flag in the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday night after a chaotic end the annual stop in Music City. The win was Logano's first of the 2024 campaign and moved him from the fringe of the playoffs to locked into the title hunt this year. Logano was also able to stretch his fuel for a staggering 110 laps when most anticipated the fuel range to be 80, maybe 85 laps. A true tip of the cap to Paul Wolfe and the engine shop at Team Penske and to Logano's ability to save fuel as a driver (and yes, I know Chris Gabehart called him slow on Twitter, but it payed off). Logano now looks to build momentum into the back half of the regular season and into the playoffs, and it appears that they may be able to do just that as all three Penske Fords won in June on top of their dominance in other forms of motorsports.

Logano most definitely did not dominate the night. He was, at best, maybe a 5th place car, but more like a 12th-17th place car for most of the race. In fact, I didn't think Logano had a snowball's chance in hell to win until I saw cars spinning after he took the white flag. And even then, caution or not, he would have had to make another lap to take the checkered flag. But, by magic, miracle, and managing fuel Logano held off a hard charging Tyler Reddick and a nothing to lose drive out of Zane Smith to take the checkered flag.

The race had been dominated by Toyota, namely Christopher Bell, and looked like Denny Hamlin was on his way to the checkered flag when he charged past Ross Chastain with several laps remaining after Christopher Bell had wrecked out trying to charge back to the front. But then, as Denny Hamlin was racing towards the white flag, Austin Cindric spun down the back stretch after slight contact with Noah Gragson fighting for position. Then, all hell broke loose with the ensuring record setting five overtime attempts. And while I thought the race was a solid race up to this point, it was entertaining as hell once we hit overtime. As soon as I realized the top 4 were Hamlin, Chastain, Larson, and Busch - four drivers who are aggressive, two drivers who are currently annoyed with each other, one driver who is known as doing pretty much anything to win, and one driver desperate for a win on the season - I knew the first restart was going to be stupid. Once the green flag waved, Larson did not disappoint trying to get under Hamlin and thus wiping out Chastain and a smattering of others. I assumed we had cleared the craziest of restarts, but then the next three restarts happened and the craziness stayed right in place. Heck, even the final restart was still a little silly but we somehow survived and made it to the checkered flag.

Again, I thought the race was a good race from start to finish. It wasn't a barn burner (until it was) but we had several drivers in contention, side-by-side racing throughout the field, and a mix of strategy. All makers of an acceptable NASCAR race. Before the five overtime madness, I would have given this race a 7/10. However, with the chaos and entertainment value we received starting with Cindric spin, the race gets a small bump to an 8.5/10. I still believe there can be ways to make this racing better, and let's be honest: some of those late restarts were more in line with ARCA standards than Cup standards. Yet, in the same breath, I loved it, and it was refreshing to see teams try to stretch it on fuel and have a mixed bag of strategy. To wrap it up, I have to give mad props to Logano for stretching it on fuel. I do not believe the cheated or were doing anything nefarious; I think they just did it better than anyone else and drove into a little luck. Might not be ideal, but it happens, and they were in place to take advantage of such and earn the win.

We now head to the Windy City for the second batch of races on the Chicago Street Race. I am excited to see NASCAR back in Chicago for what I hope to be an event free weekend off the track and action packed on the track; allowing us to get the full experience since we were robbed of all the options with the weather delays from last year. The Craftsman Truck folks get another weekend off so we will kick off the racing on Saturday afternoon with the Xfinity Series at 3:30 p.m. EST on NBC for The Loop 110. The Cup Series caps off the weekend with the Grant Park 165 on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. EST on NBC.

Chicago Street Picks:

Cup - Reddick

Xfinity - SVG

Truck - OFF

Header Photo: Sean Gardner/Getty Images