Let’s not sugarcoat it. Joey Logano, last year’s NASCAR Cup Series champion, has been driving like a man who forgot where the gas pedal is. No top 10s. A single, lonely top five. And just last week at Talladega, he clawed his way to a third-place finish… only to have NASCAR rip it from his hands like a bully snatching lunch money after his Ford flunked post-race inspection. Disqualified. And shamed.
So when Sunday dawned over Texas Motor Speedway, you could be forgiven for assuming Logano’s season was just going to keep circling the drain. He started back in 27th, buried deep enough to need a search party. But this is Joey Logano we’re talking about—the guy treats adversity like a rental car: he stomps on it until it gives up. On an overtime restart Logano blasted into the lead and stole his first win of the year on the final lap. It was scrappy, it was dramatic, and it was vintage Joey.
“The sport changes so quickly,” Logano said. “It’s crazy how you can just ride these roller coasters and just proud of the team.”
Indeed. And on Sunday, that roller coaster went full Six Flags.
Michael McDowell nearly played spoiler. His crew rolled the dice on a two-tire stop during a caution on lap 220, and just like that, the little engine that could was up front. By lap 244, he’d taken the lead and was mixing it up with the fast crowd. It was shaping up to be a storybook ending… until Turn 2, also known this weekend as NASCAR’s version of a bear trap.
Just after getting passed by Logano—and then Ryan Blaney—McDowell ran out of grip and optimism. He washed up into the wall with three laps to go, his Cinderella moment shattered into fiberglass and foam. His wreck set up that overtime finish, which turned into an intra-Penske family squabble.
Blaney, who had battled back from a pit road speeding penalty that sent him tumbling as low as 37th, lined up next to Logano for the final restart. But Ross Chastain, NASCAR’s official chaos goblin, got involved. Like an obnoxious younger sibling stealing your Xbox controller in the middle of Fortnight, Chastain shoved Blaney aside, grabbed second, allowing Logano to disappear into the Texas sunset. Blaney was left fuming.
“The one time I didn’t pick the outside, the 71 (McDowell) gets the lead, and then I couldn’t get it back,” Blaney said. “Just driver making dumb decisions and not doing his job… Just can’t do nothing right currently, so hopefully it will work itself out.”
Fourth place went to Kyle Larson, who led the most laps (90) and won Stage 2. But once he lost the lead, he might as well have been trying to win the Indy 500 in a golf cart.
“Yeah, it was,” Larson said when asked if losing the lead doomed him. “You don’t want to give up the lead on a mile and a half. It’s hard to get it back… wish I could go back and do that all over again. Yeah, just bummer, but try to learn from it.”
Meanwhile, Austin Cindric—the third Team Penske musketeer and last week’s Talladega winner—took Stage 1 and led 60 laps. Then he found himself part of the demolition derby, limping home in 25th after a late crash.
Josh Berry gave the Wood Brothers a brief glimmer of Las Vegas earlier in the season. He led 41 laps and looked ready to do something remarkable—right up until lap 126, when a bump coming out of Turn 4 slapped him sideways and into the wall. Repairs got him back on track, but he finished 32nd, 84 laps behind, presumably with enough time to grab a snack.
Stage 2 ended under caution when Chris Buescher, running third, had a right rear tire commit suicide on lap 163. The carcass rolled across the track like a rogue tumbleweed. Larson, who seems to have a personal lease on Texas stage wins, took the Stage.
And then, the Big One. Not at Talladega—oh no, that would be too obvious. It waited a week, then struck in the final stage at Texas. Bubba Wallace got loose coming out of Turn 2—possibly with a “hello” nudge from Logano, possibly not. Either way, his Toyota ricocheted off the wall and careened across the track like a pinball. Six cars were wiped out: Bowman, Gragson (who had already brought out the day’s first caution on lap 21 starting a chain of events that ended badly for Denny Hamlin), AJ Allmendinger, Chad Finchum, and the rest listed under “crash test data.”
That Turn 4 bump wasn’t finished.
Kyle Busch, desperately seeking a season revival, spun on lap 229. Same corner. Same heartbreak.
Turn 2, in a fit of jealousy perhaps, struck again on lap 238.
Carson Hocevar, a first-time polesitter who led 22 laps and earned stage points, got greedy with the throttle after a restart, tagged Ryan Preece, and crunched the outside wall. Cody Ware spun trying to avoid it all. Texas giveth, and Turn 2 taketh away.
Even Brad Keselowski couldn’t escape. Running 12th and in desperate need of a top-10 finish, he got loose—guess where?—and became the cork in a four-car pileup that also snagged Busch, Cindric, and Cole Custer.
Somehow, Erik Jones kept it clean and quietly finished fifth. The rest of the top 10 read like a roulette wheel: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, Christopher Bell, and Daniel Suarez.
Next up? Kansas Speedway. Larson won there last year, and he’ll be hoping to right the ship. But no matter what happens, one thing’s for certain: Joey Logano will be grinning like a man who just found his season again.
RACE RESULTS
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.