Joey Logano led all but one lap to win the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro on Sunday night.
Logano won the pole for Sunday’s race and maximized that starting position. Logano was never officially passed under green flag conditions and the only lap he did not lead was on lap 104 when Brad Keselowski was credited with leading a lap under caution.
Drivers had difficulty passing on the restored track, in another example of how much work NASCAR still has to do to get its Cup Series car to produce decent racing on short tracks. NASCAR implemented a second tire compound for the race that was supposed to be grippier and less durable. That idea worked much better in theory than in reality.
Logano beat Denny Hamlin to the finish line by more than a second. Hamlin tried twice after the restarts to pass Logano but was unable to do so successfully. The race had four yellow flags and two of them were pre-planned before the race. The first came on Lap 2 when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was hit into the wall by Kyle Busch and the other unplanned caution came when Ty Gibbs spun.
The biggest action of the night came after the race ended when Stenhouse threw a punch at Busch after a conversation.
The tire option is disappointing.
NASCAR tested an alternate tire for the All-Star Race for the first time since 2015, when the race was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Just like nine years ago, the idea was much better in theory than in reality.
The drivers were forced to start the race on the softer optional tire and had an extra set of those tires along with two sets of normal tires in their pits. Teams had to change all four tires at the mid-race caution and then had the option to pit, and potentially lose track position, at the planned caution on lap 150.
When Busch pushed Stenhouse into the wall, all but five drivers came to the pits to immediately change the regular tire. Logano was not one of them.
The drivers who pitted couldn’t catch up with those who didn’t because the softer tires didn’t wear as much. As Logano easily held the lead without changing tires in the first stage, the preferred tire choice for the field at the halfway point was the optional tire as they knew there would be no problems making it to the end of the race.
Some teams stopped during lap 150 as a precaution for the alternative tires they ran on for two laps to start the race. Even those barely used tires didn’t take up much track position. Kyle Larson was one of the drivers who pitted and ran into third briefly after the final restart, but never challenged Logano for the lead. Larson, who qualified fifth for the Indianapolis 500 earlier in the day, finished fourth behind Chris Buescher in third.
Race results
1. Joey Logano
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Chris Buescher
4. Kyle Larson
5. Ryan Blakey
6. Bubba Wallace
7. Ross Chastain
8. Chase Elliott
9. Michael McDowell
10. Kyle Busch
11. Noah Gragson
12. Martin Truex Jr.
13. Ty Gibbs
14. Tyler Reddick
15. Daniel Suarez
16. Brad Keselowski
17. Christopher Bell
18. A.J. Allmendinger
19. William Byron
20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.