Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano
gets 1st win this season in overtime at Texas
[May 05, 2025]
By STEPHEN HAWKINS
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Reigning NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano
overcame a lot to finally get his first victory this season.
It came a week after Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric’s win at
Talladega, where Logano had a fifth-place finish that became 39th
after a postrace inspection found an issue with the spoiler on his
No. 22 Ford. There was also Logano’s expletive-laden rant on the
radio toward his teammate in the middle of that race that the two
smoothed out during the week. Oh, and he started 27th at Texas after
a bad qualifying effort on the 1 1/2-mile track.
But Logano surged ahead on the restart in overtime Sunday to win in
the 11th race this year. He led only seven of the 271 laps, four
more than scheduled.
“After what happened last week, to be able to rebound and come right
back, it’s a total '22' way of doing things. So proud of the team,”
Logano said.
On the final restart after the 12th caution, Logano was on the
inside of his other teammate, Ryan Blaney. But Logano pulled away on
the backstretch and stayed easily in front the final 1 1/2 laps,
while Ross Chastain then passed Blaney to finish second ahead of
him.
“Just slowly, methodically,” Logano said of his progression to the
front. “Just kept grinding, a couple here and a couple there and
eventually get a win here.”
Logano got his 37th career victory, getting the lead for the first
time on lap 264. He went low to complete a pass of Michael McDowell.
“I mean there’s always a story next week, right,” Logano said. “So I
told my wife last week before we left, I said watch me go win this
one. It’s just how we do stuff.”
On a caution with 47 laps left, McDowell took only two tires and
moved up 15 spots to second. He ended up leading 19 laps, but got
loose a few laps after getting passed by Logano and crashed to bring
out the caution that sent the race to overtime. He finished 26th.
“We were giving it everything we had there to try to keep track
position,” McDowell said. “Joey got a run there, and I tried to
block it. I went as far as I think you could probably go. When
Blaney slid in front of me, it just took the air off of it and I
just lost the back of it. I still had the fight in me, but I
probably should have conceded at that point.”
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Joey Logano celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race
at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, Sunday, May 4, 2025.
(AP Photo/Larry Papke)
Odds and Ends
William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott remained
the top four in season points. ... Elliott left Texas last spring
with his first victory after 42 races and 18 months without one. He
hasn’t won since, and now has another long winless drought — this
one 38 races and now nearly 13 months after finishing 16th. ... A
crew member for Christopher Bell crawled in through the passenger
side of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and was fully in the car
to reconnect an air hose the driver's helmet during a caution in the
second stage. It took two stops during that caution, and twice
climbing into the car, to resolve the issue.
Fiery end to Hamlin streak
Hamlin had finished on the lead lap in 21 consecutive races, but a
fiery finish on lap 75 ended that streak that had matched the
eighth-longest in NASCAR history. He was the first car out of the
race.
After the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota lost power, something blew
up when Hamlin recycled the engine. There were flames coming out
from under the car and it was engulfed in smoke by time it rolled to
a stop on the inside of the track and Hamlin climbed out unharmed.
Youngest polesitter
Carson Hocevar, the 22-year-old driver who is McDowell's teammate
with Spire Motorsports, was the youngest polesitter ever in Texas.
He led only the first 22 laps of the race, losing it while pitting
during the first caution. He finished 24th after a late accident.
Stage cautions
Both in-race stages finished under caution. Cindric won Stage 1
after Hamlin's issues and Kyle Larson took the second after a yellow
flag came out because of debris on the track after the right rear
tire on Chris Buescher's car came apart.
Larson got his 68th overall stage win and his sixth at Texas, with
both marks being records. He has won a stage in each of the last
five Cup races at Texas, starting in his 2021 win there.
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