NASCAR: Logano wins into Chase Round of 8

Joey Logano secured himself a spot in the NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup "Round of 8" with victory at Talladega where he held off competition from Brian Scott and Denny Hamlin.

The unusually uneventful race picked up in the closing laps when two cautions came out for minor incidents, causing the Team Penkse driver to vigorously defend his lead at the restarts and into overtime, getting a helpful boost from Kevin Harvick behind him.

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"We got that track position and just hung onto it," said Logano. "I was able to stay on the bottom and try to run the bottom and keep everyone in line, and that worked out really well. Kevin did a good job with that, which ultimately got us all a great finish. It was fun racing there at the end."

Logano took the spoils despite a penalty for driving an entire lap with a front jack attached to his car after the first set of stops.

Hamlin spent the majority of the race battling with Austin Dillon over the final Chase elimination spot. His third-place finish tied him on points but was the best finish of the two drivers in this round of races and so secured him a place in the next round, eliminating Dillon along with Chase Elliot, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski.

"We needed some things to fall our way if we didn't win the race," Hamlin said. "Today things fell our way. The last lap, we went out and earned it. I think back all the years that I've been doing this, honestly, 11 years.

"For me, I really truly believe this is the first really great fortune that we had in a Chase in my 11-year career. Things just happened well for us. We went out there and we did our jobs. It was very tough to be able to run against guys that had a lot of teammates up front. I knew that was going to be a problem for us all day. But we were able to have just enough there at the end to get past the 41 (Kurt Busch) and get in."

Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing teammates – Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch – dropped back early in a strategic move to stay out the way of any potential wrecks, and held those positions all race, ensuring they progressed to the next round of the Chase.

Polesitter Truex, who entered the race with a 13-point buffer to the cut-off, continued a run of bad luck when his engine blew on lap 41. Logano's teammate Keselowski struggled with debris for a significant portion of the race, with his engine temperature soaring before he was able to shake it by sacrificing positions early on. Later on Ryan Blaney assisted in removing debris again, but it came too late and Keselowski parked his smoking car on lap 145.

Chase Elliott wasn't able to pull off the win he needed to take his Chevrolet into the next round of the Chase, despite following an eight-car train into the closing stages.

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