NASCAR: Joey Logano wins Truck race at Martinsville

Joey Logano will no longer have any excuse for being late.

Logano, who started from the pole, won a three-wide battle with Matt Crafton and Erik Jones on the next-to-last lap and held on for the victory in Saturday’s Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway.

The win is the first of Logano’s career in the NASCAR Truck Series and comes with the traditional grandfather clock awarded race winners at the historic track.

Logano also became the 26th driver in NASCAR history to win at least one race in all three national series – Sprint Cup, Xfinity and Trucks.

Crafton finished second, Jones was third, Johnny Sauter was fourth and Tyler Reddick was fifth.

Turning point

After knocking Cole Custer out of the way on Lap 249 of 250, Crafton looked like he had the win wrapped up but a caution set the race up for a two-lap overtime. On the restart on Lap 257, Logano, Crafton and Erik Jones went three-wide for the lead with Logano coming out with the advantage.

Three who mattered

Joey Logano: We are only in Week No. 6, and Logano has already won a race in three NASCAR series – Cup, Xfinity and Trucks.

Cole Custer: Twice penalized for speeding on pit road, Custer still found himself in the thick of the hunt for the race win. Crafton knocked him out of the way on the next-to-last lap of regulation, which brought out a caution.

Matt Crafton: The two-time series champion didn’t take kindly to Custer’s three-wide move with three laps remaining and didn’t waste any time returning the favor.

Observations

<bullet> Brad Keselowski Racing has certainly developed into one of the Truck series’ championship-contending teams, bringing trucks to each race capable of contending for the win. Team owner Brad Keselowski has poured a lot of resources into his team over the last couple of years and it appears to have paid off.

<bullet> Crafton, who won the last two Truck championships, took over the points lead following his runner-up finish. He holds a two-point lead over Reddick. Jones is third, six behind Crafton.

They said it

“We got a good restart on the last restart and got by all of them. I drove it in there and hoped for the best.” – race winner Joey Logano.

N@SCAR

Three tweets from Saturday’s race:

This story was originally published March 28, 2015 at 5:59 PM with the headline "NASCAR: Joey Logano wins Truck race at Martinsville."