NASCAR heads to Kansas Speedway next weekend. Here’s who won Sunday at Darlington, S.C.
With NASCAR headed to Kansas City this week for its twice-yearly show at Kansas Speedway, Joey Logano won for the first time this season on Sunday, taking the checkered flag in the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina.
The NASCAR Cup Series victory did not come without some fireworks.
Logano bumped Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron, who was sporting a Jeff Gordon-tribute paint scheme, out of the way for the lead in Turn 3 on the next-to-last lap.
“He is an aggressive driver so, no, this doesn’t surprise me,” said Gordon, who is now the vice chairman and co-owner of Hendrick Motorsports.
“... A win is important and hard to come by. You want to get those things in every way you can. The team works hard. But you think about running into a back of a guy at Martinsville, you don’t see that at Darlington. That is the only thing that makes this stand out.”
Logano’s move didn’t surprise race fans on social media, nor those in attendance at Darlington, either. When he got out of his car, a chorus of boos rained down from the crowd. Byron added to the uproar, calling Logano a “moron” in an FS1 post-race interview and telling reporters “he does this all the time.”
That didn’t seem to bother Logano as he talked with reporters in the media center after the race.
“I have been called a lot of things worse than a moron, some I witnessed when I got out of the car,” Logano said. “It is fine.”
Logano has been known for being an aggressive driver since he entered the Cup Series. He’s had incidents with former drivers Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth, as well as current drivers Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.
Add Byron to the list, although it’s unsure how long things will linger.
For now, NASCAR next motors west. The asphalt oval in Kansas City, Kan., plays host to a doubleheader lineup Saturday and the main event — a NASCAR Cup Series race — on Sunday.
First up are the Camping World Truck Series Heart of America 200 and ARCA Menards Series Dutch Boy 150 races on Saturday. The latter is slated for a 1 p.m. start, while the green flag is scheduled to drop at 7 for the trucks race.
On Sunday, the track’s parking lots open at 9 a.m. sharp, with assorted festivities leading up to the start of the AdventHealth 400 NASCAR Cup race at 2 p.m.