June 29, 2009
By Ron Felix
CIA Stock Photo
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Logano Can't Believe His Good Fortune
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It's obviously not Christmas and it's not Joey Logano's birthday but he received the best gift of his young life by winning the rain shortened Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday. The race was red flagged with 28 laps to go and it gave Rookie of the Year candidate Logano his first Sprint Cup Series victory and made him the youngest driver, at 19 years-old, to ever win a Sprint Cup race.
"We didn't take off as good as we needed to," Logano said. "I think it's just me still lost out there trying to figure out where I needed to be. We overcame a lot. We had a left rear cut down right before we made that last long green flag run and just trying to overcome that. When that happened, I thought we were done. I was like, the day just went bad, just try to finish it off and get as best finish we can and we made the right move at the end. He (Zipadelli) went for it and I was just lucky enough to be in the seat."
With 45 laps to go Ryan Newman, with nearly a dry gas tank, stayed out because his team thought rain was coming -- but with 38 to go, Newman was forced to pit. He had already ran out of fuel. Joey Logano, who was leading, and Michael Waltrip were on the same fuel strategy. Waltrip had to duck in the pits with 39 to go and then the skies opened up, putting Logano in the winner's circle when NASCAR called the race. It was smart move by crew chief Greg Zipadelli, it was either win or die trying when he asked Logano to stay out -- when others were running out of gas.
“It was a crazy day like Joey said, but half of this sport is about putting yourself in position to have a chance to win on Sunday afternoon, and you know, that's what we did today and everything went our way<" Zipadelli said. "It's nothing more than that. We were lucky, but we put ourselves in position because we were behind. Because we did have the problems, it allowed us to pit, top off with fuel and do some of the things that the guys up front that were guarding their track position, which is pretty normal here.
"You can almost run this race like a road course, unless you were in the situation that we were in, and we took advantage of it, and last year, we were in the complete opposite. We should have won this race. We dominated most of the second half, and it rained with 30 or so to go and we had to pit for fuel and today we got it back. It was fun. Just to be able to put ourselves in that position and be here in Loudon, victory lane. There's not many better places."
Logano scored his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory in just his 20th start and his first in two starts at New Hampshire. He became the first Raybestos Rookie to win in 71 races, dating back to Juan Pablo Montoya’s victory at Infineon (Sonoma, Calif.) Raceway in 2007.
Jeff Gordon was second and holding down the third spot was Kurt Busch.
"My car was really good there at the end," said Gordon. "We came up on some slower cars. It seemed like it took me a little bit longer to get through them. I was trying to be careful. The honest thing is I didn't realize I was racing those guys for position, and I wasn't sure who was a lap down and who was on -- who was stretching fuel, what was going on. But I thought it was interesting that some guys that we were racing were racing really hard.
"It took, you know, a little bit out of my car to push that hard behind somebody, because when you get up behind somebody, you lose the nose and it makes the tires go away a little bit. Once I got by him, I felt like I could pull Kurt (Busch), but then it started raining, and you know, it got to where it was raining pretty hard down in 3 and 4 and I started checking up and being probably a little bit too cautious, and he was being real aggressive. You know, for all good purposes, I felt like we were racing one another for the win, you know, hoping that the 20 was going to have to either pit or run out. I basically checked up and when he got to my inside, it was going to be another race like it was on those restarts. It was going to be a lot of eight tires are better than four and we were just seeing how it turned out."
David Reutimann finished fourth followed by Tony Stewart, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Sam Hornish Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne to round out the top ten.
Johnson, who led the most laps on the day (93) lost track position with a bad pit stop and could never make it up.
Stewart holds onto the Sprint Cup Series points lead by 69 over Jeff Gordon and 169 over third place Jimmie Johnson.
Logano was the Rookie of the Race. Logano’s first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory came his 20th career start. He scored his first top-five and fourth top-10 of the 2009 season. Logano becomes the second Raybestos Rookie to win in 29 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at New Hampshire. Ryan Newman scored his first win at NHMS in the 2002 fall race.
The next race on the Sprint Cup schedule – the 18th event of 36-races for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship. The Coke Zero 400 will be on Saturday July 4th, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. The race begins at approximately 8:00 PM. eastern time -- with live, high-definition coverage provided by TNT beginning with its pre-race show at 7:30 p.m. eastern time.
The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128 and MRN radio.
For Full Final Race Results...
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