Joey Logano Survives 5 OTs to Win at Nashville

If you were ever in suspense in how a race would end with an overtime restart, then try five of them. It was a wild race and a wild finish at Nashville Superspeedway where Joey Logano held on to the lead with hardly any fuel left in his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford to get his first points win of the 2024 Season. This win, which came at Logano turning the final 110 laps of the race with the same fuel tank, punches the 2x Champion’s ticket to the playoffs.

The Ally 400 featured a total of 15 cautions with 31 extra laps added to it, as race leaders were falling out of contention to win the race, due to running out of fuel. While some suffered, some benefited from it, including rookie Zane Smith, who has been struggling all season, earning a second-place finish, just beating Tyler Reddick to the line by -0.003. This marks the best finish in the Cup Series for the 2022 Craftsman Truck Series Champion. 

Logano wasn’t sure if he was going to make it on fuel, as he had to block a charging Tyler Reddick on the final restart of the race. Reddick would finish third, Ryan Preece finished fourth, and Chris Buescher finished in fifth. 

“I know into (Turn) 3, my fuel light came on, and it stumbled across the line. That was definitely all of it,” Logano told NBC Sports after the race. “But so proud of this Shell-Pennzoil Mustang team. It’s been a stressful few weeks trying to get into the playoffs, and being able to win here is huge for our season. Felt great to get that. Boy, it feels good.”

“I’m out of breath. We had it won off of (Turn) 4, and then the caution came out, and I was like, oh, my God, but you can’t pit. You’ve kind of got to go for it. Boy, it was close. But we’ve got to give a lot of credit to Roush Yates, not only building horsepower but building fuel mileage. That’s what won today.”

The sold-out Nashville crowd stayed despite the one-hour and 21-minute delay for weather to see Logano pick up the win. His crew chief, Paul Wolfe, did confirm that they did indeed run out of gas.

“We just got to the point. … we’ve gotten this far, let’s just stick with it,” Wolfe said. “Fortunately, it was enough, but he did run out on the last lap.”

Before the five overtime restarts, the race featured an incredible battle for the win between Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain. In the final portion of regulation, Hamlin was chasing down Chastain lap by lap until passing him with seven laps to go. However, when it had seemed that Hamlin was going to win, Gateway winner Austin Cindric went for a spin that started the chain of events that were to follow. 

Hamlin and Chastain were side-by-side in the first overtime restart, but Kyle Larson, who restarted behind them, bumped into Chastain after his splitter hit the apron. Chastain was taken out and wrecked in turns one and two, taking him out of contention. As for Hamlin, after a couple of attempts at the restart, Hamlin had to pit for fuel.

This led to Logano and Chase Briscoe on the front row for the fourth overtime restart, then the caution came out for a spin by Josh Berry. This then put Zane Smith in an opportunity to pull off the upset.

“The winning side of me is pissed with the second place, especially after hearing the 22 (Logano) was going to run out for the past 10 laps, I don’t know how many restarts,” Smith said of his runner-up finish. “But no, I wouldn’t have done anything different. I felt like I chose the right lane, and it’s crazy how much different these cars drive with cleaner air. Just proud of our strategy there.”

Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson, Daniel Hemric, and Noah Gragson rounded out the top ten. 

Christopher Bell was the dominant car for most of the race as he led for 131 laps and swept both stages. However, after being shuffled back on pit strategy for a restart, he spun in turn two, taking him out of the race and finishing 36th.

“Just put myself in a bad spot, lost my cool, got back in traffic with all those yellow flags, and put myself in a really bad spot going into (Turn) 1,” said Bell.

The NASCAR Cup Series head up to the streets of Downtown Chicago for the second time ever, as Shane van Gisbergen shocked the world and won this race a year ago. That race will be this coming Sunday at 4:30 pm EST.