Team Penske driver #22 Joey Logano made a grand effort, he made contact with race leader Chase Elliott on two occasions coming to the checkered flag, bit it wasn’t enough as Elliott edged Logano to win the season opening XFINITY Series Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway.
Elliott had taken the lead on a restart with 13 laps remaining and positioned himself on the bottom lane, when Logano mounted an outside lane charge on the final lap. Elliott threw a few blocks on Logano, who tried to pass Elliott as they sped towards the checkered flag with Logano bumping Elliott’s car twice.
The margin of victory for chase Elliott was 0.0043 seconds!
Elliott, a rookie in the Sprint Cup Series and who is replacing the retired Jeff Gordon in the HMS #24, used this XFINITY race to gain a lot of drafting experience prior to Sunday’s Daytona 500.
For Logano, it was his third second place finish this week. He finished second to Denny Hamlin in the Sprint Unlimited and second to Dale Earnhardt, Jr.in the Can-Am duel race #1.
“I just finished second again”, joked Logano. “Second is’t bad, but it just sucks at the same time.”
Rounding out the top five were Kasey Kahne third, Elliott Sadler finished fourth and Austin Dillon was fifth. Kahne, Elliott, and Elliott all drive for Jr Motorsports, co-owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Chase showed us that he can do it – we will all be watching him tomorrow – Congratulations Chase