Logano takes victory in wild Truck race at Martinsville
Joey Logano, Matt Crafton, and Cole Custer put on quite a show towards the end of Saturday's race.
Photo by: NASCAR Media
Joey Logano came out ahead in a three-way battle that also involved Matt Crafton and Erik Jones after a green-white-checker restart in the Kroger 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on Saturday to claim the win in his seventh-career Truck Series start. It was his first-career Truck Series win, making his a victor in all three of NASCAR's national series.
"That's Joey Logano," crew chief Chad Kendrick said. "He's the greatest. He's one of the greatest. He's on fire this year."
Crafton finished second and Jones was third.
Crafton made aggressive moves toward the lead in the final 10 laps. After racing second behind Logano for several laps, Crafton and Logano made contact racing for the lead.
"It was Martinsville," Logano said. "Ten laps to go at Martinsville."
Crafton vs. Custer
As Crafton and Logano battled, Cole Custer moved into the top spot with four laps to go, overcoming two pit road speeding penalties assessed earlier in the race.
"We had a real up and down day, just had to come back from a bunch of stuff," Custer said.
Custer's time up front was short-lived, as Crafton took the lead with some contact with Custer that resulted in Custer spinning. Custer wound up with a 16th-place finish
"I felt the first half of the race, I raced everybody clean," Crafton said. "I said every man to himself at that point."
Crafton said after the race that moving Custer was a move of retaliation for physical racing from Custer earlier.
Tug-of-war
Logano and Crafton combined to lead most of the race. Logano started on the pole and ran up front until the yellow flag waved for the first time on lap 35. Mason Mingus stayed out and led four laps until Logano retook the lead on the restart.
Logano continued to run up front until Crafton made the first pass for the lead on the race track on lap 111. Crafton continued up front through the longest green-flag ruN and maintained command as a rash of cautions broke out in the second half of the race.
In all the yellow flag waved nine times throughout the race, with all but two of those cautions coming after lap 140 of the race's 250-lap scheduled distance.
Johnny Sauter finished fourth and Tyler Reddick fifth. Sixth through 10th went to Daniel Suarez, James Buescher, John Wes Townley, Matt Tifft and Justin Boston.
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