Joey Logano won the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway over Kyle Larson, who finished second.
“I thought there for a minute like ok, I might finish third or fourth here tonight, but they kind of worked their way up and I was like, Merry Christmas to me, I got a gift there,” Logano told USA Sports about how the end of the race unfolded.
This was Logano’s third win of the year, and he moved up from seventh to third in the standings, just 16 points off Larson in first. Carson Hocevar finished in third while Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five.
Josh Berry finished sixth for his best ever finish at Bristol, while Bubba Wallace, Denny Hamlin, William Byron and Ryan Preece made up the rest of the top 10.
There was a competition caution on lap 40 due to practice and qualifying being rained out. During the caution, Logano gambled and stayed out along with Cindric, Buescher, Blaney, AJ Allmendinger, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Noah Gragson and Chase Briscoe.
That would work in Logano’s favor; he won the first stage followed by Larson, Hamlin, Ross Chastain, Gibbs, Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, Hocevar, Brad Keselowski and Wallace to make up the top 10.
Stage two ended early when Cody Ware got turned around with three laps to go before the end of the stage.
Because of that, Blaney won stage two with Gibbs, Logano, Berry and Bell making up the top five, and Wallace, Hocevar, Byron, Larson and Chris Buescher following behind them.
On lap 397, Riley Herbst made contact with the inside wall, bringing out the caution and trapping all but nine drivers at least one lap down.
With 70 laps to go in the race, while Hocevar and Gibbs were fighting for the lead, Alex Bowman made contact with Gibbs, bringing out the caution. Gibb’s car was unharmed, but Bowman would not finish the race.
With 44 laps to go, Blaney and Hocevar were fighting for second place when Blaney tried a late block and Hocevar put him in the wall. That would end Blaney’s day, and a fight on pit road between Blaney and Hocevar would break out after the race.
Twenty laps later, the ninth caution of the race came out after Chase Elliott lost the back end of the car, causing him to hit the inside barrier. Elliott would finish the race in 23rd.
With 13 laps to go in the race, a 10th caution would surface after Allmendinger spun on the front straight away. Allmendinger finished 22nd.
The NASCAR Cup Series will be back this weekend on Sunday, Sept. 27 at Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400. You can watch the race on USA Network or listen on SiriusXM.