Joey Logano outlasts teammate to win XFINITY race at The Glen
As Saturday's Zippo 200 XFINITY Series race at Watkins Glen International unfolded, it appeared it was going to come down to a spirited duel between a pair of teammates in Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski.
But it didn't fully develop, as Keselowski's No. 22 Team Penske Ford encountered a rear-end housing problem that forced him to come to pit road with six laps remaining.
Logano stayed in the lead on the track and went on to cruise to a convincing victory in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford on the 2.45-mile road course.
"Brad gave me a run for my money, that's for sure," Logano said. "He was just as fast as me, maybe faster. I never ran so many qualifying laps inside the car.
"I was running as hard as I possibly could and I wasn’t sure if my car would last running that hard, but she held together just long enough. I couldn’t be more proud to be here in Victory Lane."
Logano led 67 of of 82 laps in all, ending up comfortably ahead of runner-up finisher Paul Menard as Keselowski's day was ruined by his mechanical issue.
Kyle Larson, Daniel Suarez and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top five.
It didn't take long for chaos to strike in the form of a big multi-car wreck on Lap 18 in the section of the track known as the Esses.
Todd Bodine got clobbered by Ryan Sieg and was put into the wall as the field wadded up behind him, taking out a number of cars, including those driven by Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, J.J. Yeley, Blake Koch and Bubba Wallace, among others.
Despite the savage impact, there were no serious injuries. The race was red-flagged to allow track workers to remove the wrecked cars that were strewn across the track.
"I didn't see anything because it was behind me," Bodine said. "They said the 39 (of Sieg) ran into me in the back of me at the top of the Esses. I thought I had it saved, and I don't know if I just overcorrected or what, but it turned it right out in the outside wall. It was a pretty hard hit."
Bodine said the drivers were being too aggressive too early -- something he believes had to do with the youth of many in the field.
"Sometimes you've got to give," said the 52-year-old Bodine, a native of nearby Chemung, N.Y., who was racing in a one-off deal pieced together by local sponsorship. "You can't always take. You've got to give a lot in this sport. And I think that was probably one time he needed to give and didn't, so we've got a wrecked race car."
The other drivers caught in the mess weren't happy, either.
"All I see is we've got bad luck and it's getting old," Wallace said.
"I've just got to be a little smarter on these road courses and stay on the track," added Koch. "Man, I just hate it for everybody."
There were other incidents in the race, but none bigger or more dramatic -- except for perhaps when the No. 70 car of Derrike Cope literally blew up on the track, bringing out the sixth caution with 24 laps to go.
Logano worked his way through it all for his 26th career win in the series. But it was the first victory of the season in the series for Team Penske, which is surprising considering part-time series participants Logano and Keselowski combined for six series wins last year.
"This is big for Team Penske and the XFINITY side of things," Logano said. "It's great to get a win for them."
