Kyle Busch fastest in final practice at Charlotte

The first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup’s second segment took place on Sunday afternoon after being rained out Saturday night. “That definitely hurt our #31 Caterpillar Chevrolet, we had a top 10 auto before that”. But late in the race, not even Harvick had anything for Logano as Logano pulled away in the closing laps. This is exactly what his gameplay was past year as he snuck into the final four with no wins.

Logano repeated that feat Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which this year flipped spots with Kansas as far as the order in the Contender Round.

The field saw the green flag again on Lap 190, with Logano holding on to the lead. But it’s tough and we’ll have to battle through with what we’ve got right now…

Logano clearly deserved this one. Jimmie Johnson slotted into second behind him, as the top non-Chase driver in the race.

Joey Logano had never led more than 20 laps in all of his 13 starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Kyle Busch, victor of four races this season and a driver who had finished no worse than 11 in 14 of his last 16 Cup races at Charlotte, got tangled on pit road with Kyle Larson and wound up 20.

“I think we’ll take it”, Roger Penske, owner of Logano’s Ford, said. And especially so in the second round, which includes Talladega in two weeks, the most unpredictable of the Cup Series tracks. Kyle Busch finished second in qualifying, followed by Joey Lagano and Greg Biffle.

“If those are the off days, we’ll be just fine”, Harvick said. Chase hopeful Dale Earnhardt Jr got tapped in the rear by the 19 of Carl Edwards, the caution would come out a few short laps later.

“We were off in practice and I was really nervous about today’s race”, Truex said.

Best of all for Busch, Earnhardt and the others right now would be an outright win next time out, and with it an all-access pass to the next round of the Chase. Kenseth was rounding Turn 4 when Newman plowed into him. Listed at 6-1 odds to win on Saturday night, Kyle Busch and the #18 are approaching Charlotte as a race they can win to move into the next round. He made contact with the wall again 40 laps later, knocking Kenseth out of the race.

“This makes Talladega way easier”, he said. Kenseth finished dead last despite leading 72 laps on the day while Earnhardt Jr. came in 28 place.

On Sunday when Rosberg finally was able to keep Hamilton behind him on the start after winning the pole position, it was a throttle failure that ended his day and any hope of ever catching his teammate this season.

At age 25, Logano earned his fourth victory of the season and a series-high ninth over the last two years.