Sunday’s Window World 450, the first points-paying event for the NASCAR Cup Series at North Wilkesboro Speedway in three decades, belongs to Joey Logano, and allows the three-time champion to break a long winless streak that dated back to last May.
The Middletown, Connecticut-native will now get the opportunity to ride the elevator to Victory Lane at North Wilkesboro (again), after leading a career-high 323 laps and taking the checkered flag in dominating fashion, holding off Denny Hamlin by 0.859 seconds.
Logano paced the field without interruption for the final 70 laps of Sunday’s contest, taking the lead away from Daniel Suarez at Lap 381. Suarez was the final driver to make a green-flag pit stop in the final stage and fully transferred the lead back to the driver of the No. 22 Ford Mustang Dark Horse.
But it wasn’t a cakewalk for Logano, either. The 36-year-old driver had to hold off Denny Hamlin, after his Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew helped him execute a flawless green-flag pit cycle and got him within striking distance of the lead in his No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry XSE.
The lead yo-yoed quite a bit over the course of the final run, especially when Riley Herbst (a Toyota teammate to Hamlin) attempted to hold back the No. 22, but Hamlin couldn’t capitalize, with his car not hooked up to the level needed to challenge for the victory.
“A win anywhere at this point would have sounded great, but coming here to North Wilkesboro is awesome,” Logano said. “I picked up a passenger on the backstretch and we had some fun together, but what a great car, Paul Wolfe, what a great car he put together for us, just was able to execute a smooth race, everyone on pit road did a good job, engine at Roush-Yates was good, it just feels good to get back to Victory Lane, it’s been a tough year. So, getting to show the Pennzoil Ford Mustang some big smoky donuts around this place felt really good.”
Hamlin finished in the second position, with Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs bringing home finishes of third and fourth. Shane Van Gisbergen rounded out the top-five for Trackhouse Racing after leading 48 laps, a career-high for the Auckland, New Zealand-native on ovals.
Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski, Todd Gilliland, Daniel Suarez, and Ryan Preece rounded out the top-10.
Todd Gilliland defeated NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott, in the In-Season Challenge, and alongside Ryan Blaney, will advance to the finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the two will race head-to-head for $1 million.
Tyler Reddick’s horrific Summer stretch continued Sunday at North Wilkesboro Speedway, after being involved in an incident mid-race with Alex Bowman, which damaged a tie rod on the No. 45 Compairion Insurance Toyota Camry XSE, leaving him wounded and to finish 30th, five laps down.
Now, leaving Wilkesboro, Denny Hamlin holds a 68-point lead in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings over Tyler Reddick, with Ryan Blaney in third, 87 points behind. Ty Gibbs and Chase Elliott round out the top-five in points.
Next for the NASCAR Cup Series is a trip to another iconic venue, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for the Brickyard 400 on Sunday, July 26 at 2:00 PM ET on TNT Sports and TruTV.
