- Joey Logano scored his first NASCAR Cup Series victory in 45 races on Sunday, winning the Window World 450 at North Wilkesboro Speedway ahead of Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen
- Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford paced the field for a race-high 323 of 450 laps in winning North Wilkesboro’s first Cup points race since September of 1996
- Fans can lock in 2027 North Wilkesboro tickets by visiting www.northwilkesborospeedway.com
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. (July 19, 2026) — Joey Logano entered Sunday’s Window World 450 at North Wilkesboro Speedway having not won a NASCAR Cup Series points race in 441 days. North Wilkesboro Speedway hadn’t hosted a Cup points race in 10,888 days — and both waits came to a spectacular end in front of a sold-out crowd, as Logano led a race-high 323 laps and snapped a 45-race winless streak.
North Wilkesboro’s long-awaited Cup Series points race delivered on the action, with cars running three different lanes around the iconic, five-eighths-mile oval. Whether it was the top, middle or bottom groove, though, Logano had all comers covered in the closing laps — and the win couldn’t have come at a better time, with Logano having started the race outside the Chase cutoff.
Denny Hamlin, meanwhile, entered as the series points leader — but he had to settle for second, .859 seconds behind Logano, despite multiple late-race bids to pressure the winner into a mistake. Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen completed the top five.
Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford started 11th and was not an immediate threat. Gibbs led the first 42 circuits before Hamlin briefly took the point. Gibbs captured the Stage 1 victory, but the pieces were already in place for Logano to make his move: an early decision to pit for four tires granted Logano a shot at the advantage he needed to pass cars who didn’t take four tires, which moved Logano up to third after Stage 1.
Logano took the lead for the first time on Lap 86. No other driver led more than 19 laps the rest of the way, with van Gisbergen claiming those from Laps 94-112.
Bubba Wallace finished sixth with Brad Keselowski seventh and Todd Gilliland eighth. Daniel Suarez and Ryan Preece rounded out the top 10.
Logano’s victory was his second at North Wilkesboro Speedway and his first since the 2024 NASCAR All-Star Race at NWS.
The race was slowed by five cautions for 43 laps and was completed in two hours, 50 minutes and 54 seconds.
JOEY LOGANO, NO. 22 TEAM PENSKE FORD (RACE WINNER): “Finally! It’s been a tough year, no doubt. Anytime you’re lacking speed, you start to question a lot of things around you: the processes, what we’re doing, yourself. All those things come to mind on why there’s not speed. When you come to a track like North Wilkesboro, if we had no speed, then we’d really be scratching our heads, because we feel like this is our best race track and a track that we’ve been fast at before. When you have a car that fast, you just make sure not to screw anything up. On restarts, you could be a little more conservative, because we had a car that was so fast. It felt good to get back up front and lead a bunch of laps. It’s obviously a huge points day for us, to get on the other side of that [Chase] cut line.”
Race fans can connect with North Wilkesboro Speedway and get the latest news regarding upcoming races by following on X and Instagram or by becoming a Facebook fan.
