Joey Logano finally broke through and brought a Team Penske Ford to victory lane in the 2016 XFINITY Series.
Logano started on the pole and dominated most of the day, leading 67 of 82 laps and cruised to victory after teammate Brad Keselowski had to pit late due to a broken track bar. It’s Logano’s 26th career XFINITY Series victory and his third straight overall victory at Watkins Glen after sweeping the XFINITY/Cup weekend last year.
The event was a marathon, with multiple cars spinning out in most areas of the road course. The most eventful of these incidents was a lap 18 accident between Todd Bodine and Ryan Sieg in the esses. With the field close together due to a recent restart and the accident happening at the fastest, tightest portion of the racetrack, many cars got caught up while trying to avoid it. Some of them included Darrell Wallace Jr., Blake Koch, Tomy Dressi, and perennial XFINITY Series winner Kyle Busch. The widespread carnage caused a near half hour red flag and helped ensure Penske’s dominance over the remaining race.
Another bizarre incident happened on lap 59 in the inner loop, when the front of former Daytona 500 champion Derrike Cope’s Chevrolet just kind of blew up. The best way to describe it was that it looked like a small bomb had gone off in the engine. Cope was uninjured and NASCAR has impounded the car to find out exactly what happened to it.
Paul Menard, in a rare XFINITY Series start for Richard Childress Racing, brought his Chevrolet home second. “The Penske cars are just really fast here,” Menard said after the race. “I think they won the last several races here from the front row. We made our Chevrolet a lot quicker throughout the race. We had a good qualifying spot and could not do the restarts early in the run.
“We played with air pressure and track bar and hit on something that last run. We ran 22 laps straight with our fastest laps being run at the end of that run. Really happy with the way the car was throughout the run. It just struggled a little bit on those restarts.”
Kyle Larson finished third after leading two laps after the mid-way point during green flag pit stops. “Our Chevy was really good after about eight laps, but just took way too long to get going, especially with this last set of tires,” the driver of the No. 42 Cessna Chevrolet said following the race. “I had no grip for a few laps. I’d chatter the front every corner and slide the back on exit.
“I tried to slow my entry up, but I’d still get loose on exit. So it finally came to us, but it took too long. We were still able to get third, but thought had we been able to fire off on short runs, we may have had a shot.”
Daniel Suarez was the only non-Cup driver who finished in the top five in fourth. Trevor Bayne ended the day fifth in his only XFINITY start of the season so far. Elliott Sadler finished sixth and continued leading the point standings by 11 points over Suarez.
