Joey Logano wins playoff opener at Atlanta in thrilling overtime

HAMPTON, Ga. — With a strong last-lap push from Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano rocketed into the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs with an overtime victory in Sunday‘s Quaker State 400 available at Walmart at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

In a two-lap shootout that sent the first playoff race of the 2024 season six laps past the posted distance of 260 laps, Logano had the lead by more than a car-length when NASCAR called a caution on the final circuit for a mid-pack wreck behind the leader.

The victory was Logano‘s second at Atlanta, his second of the season and the 34th of his career. The driver of the No. 22 Ford vaulted to fifth in the playoff standings, but the win guaranteed him a spot in the next round.

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“They just give me really fast cars on superspeedways, and we always find ourselves towards the front of them, (but) we just end up wrecking more times than not,” said Logano, who led twice for nine laps, a far cry from teammate Austin Cindric‘s race-high 92.

“So, to be able to finally capitalize on a fast race car and win here in Atlanta again, I lived right over there in condo 805 for a long time (as a child racing Legend Cars), waking up dreaming of just racing on this race track.

“So, pulling into Victory Lane here is always a special one. We had such a really good team here today. It‘s awesome to get (sponsor) Autotrader into Victory Lane, and the JL Kids Crew (one of Logano‘s charitable enterprises) are here today, so it‘s really cool to finally win with them here.”

When NASCAR called the caution on the final lap, February Atlanta winner Daniel Suárez was inches ahead of Blaney, the defending series champion. But with the third-place finish that entailed surviving a three-car wreck on Lap 205, Blaney took over the series lead by five points over Christopher Bell, who finished fourth.

After a strong, consistent run throughout the race, Alex Bowman finished fifth, as playoff drivers claimed nine of the top 10 positions.

The Lap 205 wreck Blaney survived proved the undoing of Martin Truex Jr. After repeated trips to pit road, Truex left the race 12 laps down and heads for next Sunday‘s second playoff race at Watkins Glen International 15th in the standings, 18 points below the current cutoff for the Round of 12.

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Suárez raced beside Logano on the first lap of overtime but lost his pusher when Trackhouse Racing teammate Ross Chastain washed up the track in Turn 3 and fell back.

“No, definitely not satisfied,” Suárez said of the second-place result. “I am happy with it, but not satisfied. I lost my pusher, my teammate. He was doing a great job, and I felt like we were going to have a great shot at it.

“Ross was doing an amazing job of pushing, and I don‘t know if he got a flat tire or something, but once I lost him, I knew it was going to be tough. But that is part of racing, right?”

The race was incident-free for the first 55 laps, but on the 56th circuit, calamity struck top-seeded Kyle Larson and fellow playoff driver Chase Briscoe.

As cars at the front of the field were exiting Turn 2 on Lap 56, Larson‘s No. 5 Chevrolet, running third, broke loose and shot into the outside wall at roughly 160 mph.

As the car rebounded off the SAFER barrier and slid sideways in the middle of the track, Briscoe‘s Ford slammed into Larson‘s Camaro, ripping the left front quarter panel off the No. 14 Mustang.

Both Larson and Briscoe exited the race, in 37th and 38th, respectively, and scored one point each for their efforts on Sunday.

WATCH: Larson, Briscoe out in Stage 1 crash

“I‘m OK,” Larson said after leaving the infield care center. “Thankfully, everything held up well inside the car. That was a huge hit. I‘m not really sure what caused it.

“I was actually sort of tight and loaded in the corner. And then I was pretty far around the corner, and it just stepped out. I don‘t know, it all just happened really fast.”

Briscoe, who earned his playoff spot with a victory a week earlier at Darlington Raceway, leaves Atlanta below the current cut line with a win-or-bust mentality.

“It was a big hit, one of the biggest hits I‘ve had in a long time,” Briscoe said. “I‘m glad I‘m all right, and we just have to go win. That‘s what we had to do at Darlington, and I know we‘re capable of doing it again, so we‘ll just have to go to Watkins Glen and Bristol and try to do the same.”

Larson leaves Atlanta in 10th place, 15 points above the current cut line for the Round of 12. Briscoe is 16th in the standings, 20 points on the wrong side of the equation.

Regular-season champion Tyler Reddick came home sixth, overcoming issues on pit road. Non-playoff driver Kyle Busch finished seventh after leading 24 laps in the final stage. Chase Elliott was eighth, followed by William Byron and Cindric.

Collected in the last-lap wreck, playoff driver Harrison Burton finished 31st and is 15 points behind Ty Gibbs, who finished 17th after leading 37 laps and is 12th in the standings. Brad Keselowski ran 19th and is tied with Gibbs.

Denny Hamlin ran at the back of the pack throughout the race and was collected in the last-lap wreck, finishing 24th. He heads for Watkins Glen 11th in the standings, a mere two points ahead of Keselowski.