MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Joey Logano won last year’s inaugural Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway and his Team Penske crew rallied for a third-place effort in Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at the 1.25-mile race track in Madison, Ill.
“I’m proud of the fight. We were mediocre – just outside the top-five all day long,” the reigning Cup Series champion said. “There was a group of cars that were a tick better than us. Then we executed at the end and beat a few of them. We tried some new things from last year, and we learned some lessons. But overall: Good. We needed a solid run. We’ve been going through hell here lately. So, it’s nice to get a top-five, third place, and some points there in each stage. Good day.”
• Logano’s Team Penske teammate, Ryan Blaney, led 83 laps and finished sixth at Gateway, bolstering his lead in the Cup Series standings to 13 points over William Byron.
“Yeah, we ran pretty good today. Won the second stage which was good, second in the first stage. Just kind of lost track position, lost the lead,” explained the Coca-Cola 600 winner. “Through a couple stops and restarts, we could just never really get it back. I thought that the No. 8 (Kyle Busch), No. 11 (Denny Hamlin) and I were similar. It was just a matter of who was out front. I just got a bad restart at the end and fell to sixth. But overall, it wasn’t a bad day. It was a good points day too, and we’ll keep going.”
Austin Cindric finished 13th in the third Team Penske entry.
Larson Finishes Fourth
After struggling through much of the weekend, Kyle Larson and the Hendrick Motorspots team rallied during the second half of the race to finish fourth.
“I want to be upset with fourth after running second there the last little bit of the race and having a shot to lineup on the front row for a green-white-checkered,” Larson said. “For a lot of the day, I thought I was going to run 20th on back. Huge thank you to Cliff Daniels (crew chief) and everybody on the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team for making the right adjustments. I don’t know if we were still amazing, but the strategy calls were perfect and at the right time and the late cautions fell at the right time. I think the car would have been fine had we just ran those last 50 laps under green.”
• Carson Hocevar’s NASCAR Cup Series debut with Spire Motorsports ended with a broken brake rotor during the second stage.
“I thought it was great. I had a blast. Just so thankful for the opportunity. I don’t have a job for next year,” Hocevar said. “I know Al Niece and Cody Efaw wants me to run for them (in the Truck Series) and I will forever run a race or however many. But man, I’m just so thankful that they gave me the opportunity – the opportunity to drive a Xfinity car and now driving a Cup car. I was running 16th. It’s just so surreal for the first time ever. I thought we were going to have a good day and be in a good spot for Schluter Systems, Celsius, Spire Motorsports, Ryan Sparks and the No. 7 Chevy team. Hopefully that call for a Cup ride isn’t the only one I get in my life.”
• Daniel Suarez finished seventh at Gateway, a needed boost for his Trackhouse Racing No. 99 operation.
“It was fun today and we really needed this as a team,” Suarez said. “We needed a result that we deserved, and I felt like lately it’s been a little difficult on us when it comes to that. Today, I felt like we deserved a top 10 or top five and we came home seventh, so we will take it.”
• Denny Hamlin’s next Cup Series victory will be his 50th.
Truex Overcomes Adversity
• Martin Truex Jr. finished fifth on Sunday despite encountering more than a little adversity with his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
“Started off the race near the front and stayed there through stage one and thought we could get a little bit better and maybe have a shot at the couple, three in front of us,” Truex said. “We had a pit road penalty and had to go to the back, and it was just an uphill climb from there. Just really tough to get through the field.
“We got some damage from when someone’s brake rotor exploded, that slowed us down even more. Really with all we went through today, a top-five is a really good day for us. I’m proud of the effort.”
• Corey LaJoie finished 21st driving the Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 Chevrolet as a replacement for Chase Elliott, who was suspended for the event.
• Twenty-eight cars finished on the lead lap after 243 circuits of the 1.25-mile race track.