North Wilkesboro Speedway woke fully from its decades-long hibernation Sunday, hosting its first NASCAR Cup Series points race since 1996. There wasn’t an empty seat to be found as a warm Carolina sunset settled over the grandstands, the kind of evening that reminded everyone why this old place refused to die.
And if Joey Logano needed one more reason to love the place, he found it.
The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion snapped a 45-race winless streak, led a career-high 323 of the race’s 450 laps and held off Denny Hamlin for his 37th career victory.
By now, North Wilkesboro and Joey Logano have become the racing equivalent of an old married couple. He led 199 of 200 laps to win the All-Star Race here in 2023, then dominated much of last year’s exhibition as well. The only thing missing was a points-race trophy.
That problem has now been solved.
‘I knew in practice that the car had speed and the balance was really loose,” Logano said. “When you have that, its like, ‘OK, if we get the balance right, this thing is really fast, I think.’ So, they did a good job dialing it in overnight and putting it in position at the end of the first stage. That’s when we finally got where we needed to be and was able to just set sail up front.
“It was just a really solid race car. I was lucky to get to drive this one today and really just being able to manage a lot of things inside the car, so I’m proud of Paul Wolfe. He does a good job.”
Although it had been 33 years since Cup cars contested a points race at the historic .625-mile oval, North Wilkesboro proved time had done nothing to soften it. Only six cars remained on the lead lap at the finish, a testament to the way the speedway has always raced. It doesn’t need superspeedway crashes or road-course chaos to separate the contenders from the pretenders. It simply asks drivers to survive lap after lap until only the strongest remain. The final Cup points race here in 1996 still produced 11 lead-lap finishers.
Sunday’s return was even more unforgiving.
Because racing likes to begin with a small mechanical thunderclap, Ryan Blaney’s Penske crew had to replace a power-steering component on his Ford before the green flag. That sent the polesitter to the rear of the field before the race had even started and handed Ty Gibbs control of the opening lap.
Gibbs made the most of the opportunity, leading the first 42 circuits before the day’s first caution flew when John Hunter Nemechek spun in Turn 2 after contact from Zane Smith.
That caution triggered the first round of pit stops, although Hamlin looked at all of that activity and decided, rather mysteriously, he’d rather stay on the racetrack. The pit stop cycle then produced its own bit of pit-lane theater when Kyle Larson exited his pit stall just as Connor Zilisch arrived at his. The two made contact, breaking Larson’s wheel and forcing an unscheduled return to pit road that dropped him deep in the field and gave his afternoon the unmistakable aroma of burnt toast.
Gibbs, Christopher Bell and Shane van Gisbergen all took two tires and lined up behind Hamlin for the restart on Lap 48.
Hamlin’s strategy worked for nearly 10 laps before van Gisbergen powered to the lead. The New Zealander, seemingly surprised by his own success, keyed the radio with the wonderfully calm panic of a man who had suddenly found himself holding a live raccoon.
“I’m leading. What the fu*k do I do now?”
Van Gisbergen held the top spot for the next 26 laps before Gibbs muscled back past him on the final lap of Stage 1 to collect the stage victory. Blaney, meanwhile, had already climbed from the rear of the field to 12th, narrowly missing out on stage points.
Gibbs then won the race off pit road, only to erase all of that work with a speeding penalty that sent him to the rear of the field. That handed the lead to Logano for the restart on Lap 91.
From there, the No. 22 looked every bit like the car to beat.
While Logano steadily built his advantage, the race began unraveling for others just as green-flag pit stops started around Lap 178. Five laps later, Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman collided as Noah Gragson exited pit road. Bowman moved up the track to clear Gragson, clipped Reddick and sent both cars spinning.
The caution was costly for more than just the two drivers involved. Reddick suffered damage, while William Byron and Chase Elliott had pitted moments earlier and suddenly found themselves trapped two laps down. When the field was reorganized, only 15 cars remained on the lead lap.
Logano again won the race off pit road and led the field back to green on Lap 192, but the restart lasted only seven laps.
Christopher Bell, mired in traffic after a slow stop, found himself squeezed three-wide between Kyle Larson and Josh Berry. Bell got loose, clipped Berry and sent the Wood Brothers Racing Ford hard into the outside wall.
When the green flag returned on Lap 207, Logano simply drove away. He stretched his advantage to more than three seconds by the end of Stage 2, collecting another stage victory while the rest of the field struggled to keep pace.
Logano again beat everyone off pit road, leading the field to green for the final stage on Lap 276. This time, however, Hamlin remained within striking distance, hovering just over a second behind and refusing to let the Penske Ford disappear.
The final round of green-flag pit stops began on Lap 360 with Hamlin diving to pit road first. Logano responded the following lap and emerged still ahead. As the cycle unfolded, the two veterans sliced through heavy lapped traffic, threading their way around slower cars as if the historic oval had suddenly become a grocery store parking lot on the afternoon before Thanksgiving.
When the pit sequence finally cycled to completion on Lap 381, Logano remained in command, but Hamlin had trimmed the margin to less than half a second.
From there, the veteran Joe Gibbs Racing driver repeatedly closed to Logano’s rear bumper in traffic but could never quite get close enough to mount a serious challenge. Logano took the checkered flag by .859 of a second, ending a frustrating 45-race winless streak in front of a packed grandstand that had waited three decades to see NASCAR’s premier series return.
“I don’t want to be a one-track wonder, but right now it’s a good one to be good at and last year you feel like you had one taken away there at the end,” Logan said. “Even the old pavement I felt like we had a chance of winning that All-Star Race as well. We just have always had fast cars here and was able to manage the short-track stuff. That’s definitely in our wheelhouse right now.”
Hamlin settled for second after spending the closing laps searching for an opening that never materialized.
“You just have to complement them (Joey Logano) on a great day and a great drive,” Hamlin said. “They were really good. There were a lot of times that I felt like my car was really close to where it needed to be; it was just a smidge off. Great battle. At least was able to keep them honest there.”
Chase Briscoe finished third, while Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen rounded out the top five.
Blaney recovered from that opening-lap trip to the rear of the field and a late-race speeding penalty to finish 11th.
Tyler Reddick’s miserable afternoon may have carried the biggest championship consequences. The driver who opened the season with five victories and, not long ago, appeared to have an untouchable points lead, limped home five laps down in 30th. The result dropped him 68 points behind Hamlin in the standings and left him just 19 points ahead of Blaney in a title fight that suddenly looks wide open.
Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski, Todd Gilliland, Daniel Suarez and Ryan Preece completed the top 10.
North Wilkesboro waited 30 years for another NASCAR Cup Series points race. On Sunday, the old speedway reminded everyone why it was worth the wait. It chewed up contenders, humbled championship hopefuls and rewarded the driver who made the fewest mistakes. Some tracks merely host races. North Wilkesboro still puts on a test.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour 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, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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