NASCAR Cup Series: Joey Logano wins 2018 Ford EcoBoost 400

Joey Logano finished out the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season by earning a victory in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Team Penske’s Joey Logano closed out the 36-race 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season by winning the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The win was his second of this year’s playoffs, third of the season and the 21st of his career.

Logano started the 267-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Homestead-Miami Speedway oval in Homestead, Florida in fifth place, and he won it by 1.725 seconds over Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., who finished in second in his #78 Toyota.

Logano and Truex Jr. both entered this race, the Championship 4 race, as drivers who had a chance to win this year’s championship. By winning the race, Logano secured his first career title. Defending champion Truex Jr. settled for second place in the championship standings.

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The two other Championship 4 drivers were Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. They finished the race in third and fourth place in their #4 Ford and #18 Toyota, respectively.

The other two drivers who finished in the top six were Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski and Roush Fenway Racing’s Matt Kenseth, who finished in fifth and sixth place in their #2 Ford and #6 Ford, respectively.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott was the highest finishing Chevrolet driver of the race. He finished it in seventh place in his #9 Chevrolet. Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Clint Bowyer, Aric Almirola and Kurt Busch rounded out the top 10 by finishing in eighth, ninth and 10th in their #14 Ford, #10 Ford and #41 Ford, respectively.

The race featured a total of 22 lead changes among seven drivers. Aside of Logano, who led more laps than anybody else in the field with 80 laps led, six drivers led at least one lap of the race. Those drivers were Truex Jr., Harvick, Busch, race polesitter Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson and Michael McDowell.

The race featured a total of five caution flag periods for 26 laps. Of these five caution flag periods, the usual two took place as a result of the endings of stages one and two and an additional three took place as a result of on-track incidents. All 39 of the drivers who started the race finished it, and 18 drivers finished it on the lead lap.

Larson appeared to have a chance to break up the Championship 4 foursome at the front of the field as a result of his prowess at running the track’s high line, but an accident in the third stage sent him to the back of the field. He recovered to finish in 13th place in his #42 Chevrolet.

The race win and thus the championship then appeared as though they would go to Harvick, who made what ended up being his penultimate pit stop before Truex Jr. and Logano made theirs. His new tires allowed him to come out of the pits ahead of Logano, who passed Truex Jr. in the pits, and Truex Jr.

But it was Busch who stayed out to inherit the race lead in the hopes that a caution flag period would take place, at which point the whole field would likely come into the pits and Busch would have the advantage as the race leader.

This caution flag period ended up coming out when Keselowski and Daniel Suarez made contact in turn one with just 20 laps remaining. Busch, who had experienced several slow pit stops throughout the race up to that point, came into the pits and left the pits as the race leader after a fast pit stop.

On the ensuing restart, Truex Jr. took the lead from second place. Logano then passed Busch for second before going on to take the lead from Truex Jr. He never looked back.

Here are the full race results of the 2018 Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Race Results
1st – Joey Logano
2nd – Martin Truex Jr.
3rd – Kevin Harvick
4th – Kyle Busch
5th – Brad Keselowski
6th – Matt Kenseth
7th – Chase Elliott
8th – Clint Bowyer
9th – Aric Almirola
10th – Kurt Busch
11th – Austin Dillon
12th – Denny Hamlin
13th – Kyle Larson
14th – Jimmie Johnson
15th – Ryan Newman
16th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17th – Ryan Blaney
18th – Jamie McMurray
19th – A.J. Allmendinger
20th – David Ragan
21st – Darrell Wallace Jr.
22nd – Ty Dillon
23rd – Chris Buescher
24th – William Byron
25th – Paul Menard
26th – Matt DiBenedetto
27th – Erik Jones
28th – Michael McDowell
29th – Alex Bowman
30th – Daniel Suarez
31st – Landon Cassill
32nd – J.J. Yeley
33rd – Ross Chastain
34th – Corey Lajoie
35th – B.J. McLeod
36th – Kyle Weatherman
37th – Timmy Hill
38th – Tanner Berryhill
39th – Regan Smith

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The 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, February 17, 2019 with the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. This race is set to be broadcast live on FOX.

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