Logano wins the Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan

[media-credit name=”Credit: John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”224″][/media-credit]Under bright skies and sparse stands, the NASCAR Nationwide series took the green flag today at the Michigan International Speedway. That has been one of the stories with the Nationwide series all year, as well as NASCAR as a whole – good racing but fewer people to watch.

Cole Whitt started on the pole for today’s Alliance Truck Parts 250, but in the opening laps, things didn’t go as planned for his teammate, Danica Patrick. On lap two, she had an incident with the driver of the #38 car, Brad Sweet. They both spun coming off of turn-2. Neither driver had too much damage and both were able to continue.

On lap 25, NASCAR slowed the field for a competition caution to check the tire wear on the cars. Tire wear has been a big issue at Michigan this weekend, as NASCAR announced prior to the race that the Sprint Cup cars would have a special practice session later in the day to test a new left side tire being used on Sunday due to excessive speed and tire wear during practice. Joey Logano led everyone onto pit road during the competition caution and Sam Hornish Jr. came out first after taking only 2 tires. Hornish Jr. ended up holding off the field for a good number of laps with almost everyone behind him taking four tires instead of two.

About 15 or so laps into the second long green flag run of the day, Austin Dillon came down pit road because he had a vibration. Dillon took two right side tires. This was a very risky move because you usually should take four tires when you feel a vibration, just to make sure that you changed the correct tires. Dillon felt that the vibration was coming from the right side of the car, so they took two tires only and fell 1-lap down and settled into 27th position. Luckily for Dillon, just as he came on the radio to tell his crew chief, Danny Stockman that the vibration had not gone away, the caution flag flew once again. Dillon received the “lucky dog” pass and was back on the lead lap in no time.

The leaders headed to pit road again. Hornish took four tires because of only taking two on the prior stop, while Paul Menard, Elliot Sadler and James Buescher were among the leaders that took two tires and led the way off pit road.

During this caution, points contender Ricky Stenhouse Jr. came down pit road and the team opened the hood to take a look at the right front suspension. Stenhouse has had bad luck and very poor runs the past few weeks, and this has put him in second place in the championship race.

After the restart on lap-55, Brad Sweet had another incident. This time it was with Brad Keselowski and the #22 Discount Tire Dodge. Sweet got loose and barely kissed the outside wall. Keselowski made a nice save up in the marbles and kept the car off the wall.

With 40 laps to go, the first green flag pit stops of the day started with Keselowski being the first taker to hit pit road. Michael McDowell in the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) car was next and then Menard pitted from the lead. Menard had a bit of trouble on the right rear during the pit stop. This was because the right rear tire changer had a fireball come up into his face and had part of his goatee burnt off! Yes, you heard me right! It caused Menard to drop from 1st to 4th once all the green flag stops cycled through.

When Danica Patrick pitted, she took two tires only, but ended up waiting on fuel. During that time she could’ve changed all four tires and lost basically no time at all. Plus, she reported that she had a vibration so that would’ve fixed that problem for sure.

After all stops, Elliot Sadler, your NASCAR Nationwide Series points leader, was your race leader over Logano, Kurt Busch in the #54 Monster Energy Toyota driving for his brother, Kyle Busch Motorsports, and Menard in the #33 Menards/Rheem Chevrolet.

With 22 laps to go, Austin Dillon, who was still trying to make his way up through the field, was racing with Patrick for position when Dillon tried to go to Patrick’s inside. Patrick got loose and spun out again in the middle of turns 1 and 2. Although there was no direct contact made by Dillon, it seemed as though he sucked the air out from under her car and caused her to spin around.

On the next restart with 18 laps to go, Sadler, who started second, got an awful restart and lost a total of six positions and dropped back to seventh. Five laps later, Patrick and Sweet were involved in another accident, but this one was a little more severe.

Battling for 14th spot, Danica got loose and ended up with her right rear into the outside wall and it was heavily damaged.

With 10 laps to go and Logano still leading, Menard got a bad restart and Busch, like he was doing all day on the restarts, made it 3-wide going down into turn-1 and gained a lot of spots. James Buescher settled in second and Dillon in third when there was, you guessed it, another yellow flag. This one involved Jamie Dick and Josh Richards.

There was an oil spill so NASCAR decided to red flag the race to clean up all the debris and oil. Also, something strange happened; after Richards got out of his car, it rolled down the 18 degree banking by itself. It settled on the infield grass and nobody was hurt by the unmanned stock car rolling downhill.

The last restart of the day came with five laps to go. Logano led, Buescher was second and Busch was third. Buescher stayed on Logano’s bumper for the next four laps. On the last lap, going into turn-1, Buescher got to Logano’s inside, but he couldn’t make it stick. Logano had the momentum coming off the top side of the race track and went on to win the Alliance Truck Parts 250, his fifth NASCAR Nationwide win of this season.

Busch finished in third place, Cole Whitt finished fourth and Dillon rounded out the top-5.

Some other notables were Johanna Long, who didn’t get that much TV time, finished in the 16th spot, Sadler in 11th, Patrick 18th and Stenhouse Jr. who had handling problems all day, brought it home 25th.

The second place finisher, Buescher, said “there were a lot of moves at the end of the race” and that they “didn’t have all the speed [they] needed getting into the center of the corner. Restarts were good. I thought I was gonna get Joey but once I got to the bottom, I was just too loose.”

Adam Stevens, the crew chief for Joey Logano after the race said that it “feels great” to keep winning these Nationwide races. The winner, Logano, talking about racing Buescher for the win, said that “it’s hard to get away from anyone. I knew the 30 [Buescher] was waiting on me.”

Talking about his momentum, Logano said that he’s “been on a roll lately [and we] just gotta keep it going. I’m very confident right now in my abilities.”

This race at Michigan had high hopes after seeing the high speeds being posted earlier in the week and I think that NASCAR fans everywhere would agree when I say that it did not disappoint.