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Logano Prevails In Daytona 500 Thriller

Joey Logano jumps out of his ride and celebrates his Daytona 500 victory. [Russ Lake Photo]

Daytona Beach, Fla. – Joey Logano starred in the 57th running of the Daytona 500, winning the Great American Race for the first time. Taking the lead on lap 191, Logano wasn’t to be denied, even though he had to survive a green-white-checkered finish to win his first 500 in four tries.

The race ended with a caution flag flying due to a multi-car crash that happened after the field took the white flag. In total, the race ran 203 laps.

Throughout and particularly for the last 20 laps, the sun-baked crowd was treated to one of the most exciting Daytona 500’s in modern memory. Three-wide, close racing prevailed from start to finish.

In victory lane, Logano was ecstatic and thrilled with the outcome.

“What an amazing moment,” he exclaimed. “Wow. To win this race is just amazing. I have the best team on pit road for sure. These guys are awesome. My spotter did a great job giving me the information I need to get our front and stay out front before that last caution and be able to have a good restart there at the end. I knew I had the 15 behind me and Clint Bowyer was the best pusher I could find out there and he pushed me to the lead. I knew I wanted the outside to make sure he was behind me to work up there again.”

Regarding the push for the lead, he said, “We got the push that got us out front and that was just Clint (Bowyer) pushing hard. He wasn’t lifting before he got to my bumper, but he was slamming into the bumper and that is what we needed to get this Ford out front and here in victory lane.

“Coming to the white flag, I saw that the first three cars were single file, and I knew that was a good thing because it would be harder for them to form a run. Then I saw others crash in the mirror, but I had a distance to go and I thought that was good because it was still going to be harder for them to catch up without as many cars in the pack. Then the caution came out anyway. I can’t explain the feeling of winning the Daytona 500. I said in an interview that this was our worst race track last year, and we worked really hard to figure out how we could get better at it and all the hard work got us the win today. This is better than Disney World.”

At age 24, Logano became the second youngest driver to win the 500. Also, he won for the ninth time in 221 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.

Driving the Shell Pennzoil Ford, Logano added to the glory of the American manufacturer, as it swept all three of NASCAR’s three touring divisions this weekend, doing so for the first time. In the Daytona 500, Ford gained its 14th overall win.

Logano’s Ford is fielded by Team Penske and Roger Penske’s team won the 500 for the second time. Ryan Newman scored for the legendary team in 2008.

Penske commented, “To win this race is special. Obviously, winning the Indy 500 has meant a lot to me, too. We’ve competed in NASCAR for so many years and have come up short. What I saw today was a driver who came to us a couple of years ago, and then Todd (Gordon) jumped on board. Today, Todd managed the race well, and Joey was no further back than 10th. When you see Johnson, Earnhardt and Gordon back there, Joey was able to play fair and yet he knew what he had to do. It was a perfect day, and we stole one from the Hendrick team.”

Added crew chief Gordon, “The thing that helped us the most today is that we worked really well with our team car (Brad Keselowski). He did an awesome job in helping us. Coming into this week, we talked a lot about how we wanted our car to be come race time, and I think we made the right calls, had enough stability in our car to maintain our position up front and Joey did a great job of finding the right lines.”

2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick finished second in the Budweiser Chevrolet.

“I thought we were going to have a chance, backing up to the 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and coming up on Logano off turn 4, but in end, it didn’t pan out with the caution,” he said. “Coming to the white (flag), you never know what is going to happen. I was trying to time it to have those others up to my bumper to have a shot at it. It was still a good weekend for us, and I am really proud of my team.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led 32 laps, came from eighth in the closing laps to score third place. The 2014 500 winner expressed disappointment with the outcome as he thought he could well have won it if he hadn’t made a mistake on the last restart.

Said the popular driver, “I made a mistake on a restart with 20 to go, as I didn’t do what I needed to do and got shuffled to the middle. I had a fast car, but I am a little disappointed as you don’t get cars that good too often. And when you do, you like to try to capitalize. You never know what you’re going to do. You got to try to win the race but we didn’t get time to make a run.”

Denny Hamlin drove smartly to earn fourth place for Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing.

Fifth place went to multi-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who ran at front of field throughout, and he led four times for total of 39 laps.

Sixth through 10th place went to Casey Mears, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle.

Running in his 23rd and final 500, Jeff Gordon got caught up in a wreck on the final lap and he was scored 37th. He led from the green flag and was class of field at times, leading on six occasions for a race-high 87 laps.
Gordon commented, “For some reason I’m still smiling and enjoying every moment of it. Obviously, I enjoyed the first half a lot more than the second half. What an amazing car we had. Just out there in the front with our Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet just controlling the race. Had one restart where I started on the outside and just couldn’t get our line going. We got shuffled back and kind of played catch up from that point on. This was an amazing week and an amazing day. I am just in a different place that is so foreign to me, but so incredible. To just be taking it all in and enjoying every moment. Yeah, right now I’m a little bit sad this is my final Daytona 500, but I’m more upset we didn’t have a shot at winning there at the end .”

Seven others were caught up in the backstretch accident.

Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth tangled in the early going with the former pulling out and was scored 42nd while completing 72 laps.

Kenseth rebounded to finish 35th, one lap behind the leaders.

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