Takeaways from Kentucky: How the heck did Joey Logano go from 1st to 7th?
It sure looked like Joey Logano was going to win at Kentucky Saturday night with seven laps to go.
Logano had dashed away from Kyle Busch after he passed him for the would-be race lead with just over 20 laps remaining and quickly built a lead ahead of Busch of over a second.
That margin disappeared when Bubba Wallace went spinning with six laps to go. And then Logano’s lead disappeared on the following restart too.
Logano restarted the race side-by-side with Busch, who got close to Logano’s car to disrupt the air — and maybe cause a little contact — as the two crossed the start/finish line. That slowed Logano’s car enough to give eventual race-winner Kurt Busch a chance to put Logano three-wide in the middle. And Logano was toast after that.
“I thought I was going to have a decent [restart] but I got stopped on the left rear there when Kyle got into me,” Logano said. “That is what it is. That stopped all my momentum. The 1 had a huge run and I didn’t have anywhere to go. I couldn’t block them all. I tried to stop the 18 on his right rear by side-drafting. I saw the 1 coming and felt like if I could get in front of him that we were so low at the time if I blocked the 1 he would just go to the middle and pass me. I felt like I couldn’t stop the 1. I was in a bad spot. Once I got stopped on the left rear on the restart I was a sitting duck and they just went by me on both sides.”
After restarting the race in first, Logano was outside the top five halfway down the backstretch. And he finished outside the top five too. Logano ended up finishing seventh. What a difference a caution makes.
“It is frustrating when you are fast enough to win and you don't win,” Logano said.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s qualifying results don’t pan out
All four of Stewart-Haas Racing’s cars started Saturday night’s race in the top seven. Just two of them finished in the top 10.
Clint Bowyer led the way with a sixth-place finish and Daniel Suarez finished eighth. Aric Almirola was 14th and Kevin Harvick, who must have had something go wrong, finished 22nd. The team is still winless in 2019.
Suarez started the race from the pole but his race went south in the second stage. He pitted under green for a tire issue and then ended up getting a pit road speeding penalty for the green flag pit stop.
“I feel like we made the car better but we never got the track position back,” Suarez said. “We had a tire going down and then I was speeding coming to pit road because I was wheel hopping because of the tire. It was one problem after another. We were fast enough to overcome that but not enough to get a better finish.”
Suarez was three laps down after serving the penalty and ended up a lap down at the end of the second stage after the rest of the field’s pit stops cycled through. He got the free pass to get his lap back on a lap 180 caution but never was able to work his way back toward the top five.
“Our SHR cars are extremely fast, we show that in qualifying, but they aren’t the best in race trim and traffic yet,” Bowyer said. “We have work to do there and we know that.”
Spire’s No. 77 finishes seven laps down in Daytona win afterglow
Spire Motorsports’ performance at Kentucky wasn’t too surprising given its position in the points standings. But it still can be shocking to see a winner be off the pace
The team won at Daytona a week ago when Justin Haley was leading when lightning struck during a caution flag. The team’s No. 77 car was driven by Quin Houff Saturday night and Houff started last after his car qualified last among all 36 entries and also failed inspection before the race.
Houff quickly went a lap down and completed the race seemingly without incident. He finished the race in 34th, seven laps off the pace.
That brings us to the part that’s a bit shocking. When was the last time a Cup Series race winner finished so many laps off the pace the next week because of a simple lack of pace and not an accident or a mechanical issue?
Chris Buescher, the last driver to win a race for a small team (Front Row Motorsports), was just one lap down at Watkins Glen the week after his Pocono win in 2016.
David Ragan was 39th at Darlington the week after his win at Talladega in 2013, but he retired from the race because of an engine problem. Regan Smith was 39 laps down at Dover after he won at Darlington in 2011, but he had a track bar issue during that race that put him so many laps down.
The 34th also means that Spire has an even worse chance of making the top 30 in the owner points to make the playoff field. The team can compete for the owner’s title thanks to the win, but only if it’s in the top 30. The team is now 91 points back of 30th with seven races to go ahead of the playoffs. That’s a gap that looks insurmountable for a team that’s averaging 6.5 points per race.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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