The second race of Joey Logano's Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway was his best, as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup contender strapped in for 300 miles of NASCAR XFINITY Series racing and drove to victory in the Drive for the Cure 300 presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina after a spirited battle with fellow Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Larson.
Logano -- who finished 36th in the Bank of America 500 -- won the XFINITY Series nightcap ahead of Elliott Sadler, Daniel Suarez and Larson when a late restart saw Logano go three-wide with Larson and Justin Allgaier and emerge with the top spot. While Logano left with his 27th career XFINITY Series win, eight drivers left Charlotte feeling like winners: runner-up Sadler and third-place finisher Suarez joined Allgaier, Erik Jones, Blake Koch, Ryan Reed, Brendan Gaughan and Bubba Wallace in the Round of 8 in the inaugural XFINITY Chase.
Drive for the Cure 300 presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Winner Joey Logano (No. 12 PPG Ford): "I knew my only shot was on the restart … I was huffing and puffing and giving it all I got. To come out here and compete at this level shows the depth of this team and Team Penske. It was a long night but a good recovery from earlier in the day, when I tried to knock the wall down. Obviously we had a good car. Maybe we didn't have the best car but we had something that we could make something happen with. We stayed on the lead lap on that long run. The pit crew did their job. It was an awesome restart on there at the end. It was a lot of fun to be able to do that. We have a great mix of guys and girls from the shop on this team and it's a good win for them and the first for my crew chief, Brian Wilson. It was a long night for sure but a good recovery. It was a great win and a lot of fun."
Runner-Up Elliott Sadler (No. 1 OneMain Chevrolet): "We really wanted to win this race. Any time I get to run this pink race car it's very sentimental to me and my family. My mom wasn't able to be here this weekend because she is still recovering. All I could think about those last few laps was trying to get by Joey (Logano) and trying to get that win. It just shows how hard my team really works on the car. The thing took off … We have got some really good cars sitting in the shop ready to go for the second round … How we battled and fought tonight gives us some momentum going into the next (races)."
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