With Kevin Harvick hounding him mercilessly for 63 laps, Joey Logano kept his No. 22 Team Penske Ford out front after taking the lead on a Lap 438 restart and held on to win Saturday’s Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Successfully defending last year’s victory at Thunder Valley, Logano won his third race of the season, his second at the .533-mile short track and the 11th of his career.
Harvick recovered from two pit road speeding penalties to finished second, a mere .220 seconds behind Logano. Polesitter Denny Hamlin ran third, and Clint Bowyer got a much-needed fourth place result in his No. 15 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota.
Brad Keselowski came home fifth, followed by Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch, who led a race-high 192 laps but was hit with a pit road speeding penalty on his last stop under yellow on Lap 432.
Logano took over from there and racked up 176 laps out front in a race that saw 14 lead changes among five drivers. The runner-up finish was Harvick’s 10th of the season.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished ninth, followed by Ryan Newman and Jamie McMurray, who solidified their positions in the fight for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup berths on points. McMurray and Newman are 10th and 11th in the standings, respectively, the highest-scored drivers without a victory this season.
Given that there have been only 11 different winners in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this year, at least three drivers are certain to qualify for the Chase on points.
Kyle Busch, a four-time winner and 29th in the standings, also moved closer to locking up a Chase berth, padding his advantage 46 points over 31st-place Cole Whitt. Busch, who missed the first 11 events of the season because of injury, must remain in the top 30 for the next two races to qualify for the Chase.