William Byron had dominated much of Saturday night’s race and his lead over Dillon had grown to over 2.6 seconds when a caution came out on Lap 395 of the scheduled 400-lap race to bunch the field.
As the leader, Byron chose to start the two-lap overtime on the bottom lane and Logano lined up alongside of him on the outside. Dillon lined up behind Byron and Logano’s Penske teammate, Ryan Blaney, lined up behind him.
Byron got a strong start was able to clear for the lead and led at the white flag but Logano did get close enough on the final lap to try a desperate attempt for a bump-and-run but to no avail.
Logano recounts the final two laps
“I feel like if I had a better restart the restart before (the last one) – I think I chose the wrong lane and got (Dillon) in front of me and just got stuck behind him, couldn’t pass him,” Logano said.
“But just that final restart there, I had the front row. That’s what you can ask for. Got cleared to second, and (Byron) kind of messed up off of (Turn) 4 and let me get to him, and he did a really good job of brake-checking into third, right, which is a good job.
“He did what he was supposed to do, and kind of got me all stuffed up behind him and I couldn’t accelerate off the corner and be as close as I needed to be to execute the ol' bump-and-run.”
Logano moved into fourth in the series standings but it has been nearly a year since he won a race, with his most recent win coming at the inaugural Bristol Dirt Race in 2021.
For Dillon, who has been up-and-down so far this year, Saturday night’s race was reminiscent of his second-place earlier this season at Fontana, Calif.
Dillon loses out on final restart
He ran in the top three much of the final stage and like Logano, thought he had a plan to catch Byron on the final restart.
“I’m a little bummed. I like to pride myself in when we get in those situations being clutch, and that was anything but that on that last restart,” Dillon said. “I spun the tires pretty good through the gears.
“Once I got back in line there I had some grip, and I feel like we had good forward drive all night long and I just felt like if we got to the gears we were going to have a shot at him.
“We’ve been working really hard to make this car as good as possible. We want to get (Richard Childress Racing) a win, and that’s what we’re here racing for.”
