Logano makes history in dominant Kentucky win

Becomes youngest winner in series history with victory

SPARTA, Ky. -- Everybody knew Joey Logano would win in the Nationwide Series. It was just a matter of how quickly he could get it done.

In only his third career start, Logano answered that question Saturday night in the Meijer 300 at Kentucky Speedway, becoming the youngest driver to win in Nationwide Series history at 18 years and 21 days.

"It's definitely awesome," Logano said. "We didn't unload this morning the way we wanted to. [Crew chief] Dave [Rogers] and the guys never gave up. They worked hard on it and changed everything. That last pit stop we got it about right. Overall, it was a pretty good night."

Kentucky has now produced three consecutive first-time winners and eight different race winners in as many races.

Logano won the pole for the 300-miler, his second in as many weeks, and led 76 of the 200 laps, second only to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch. Busch led a race-high 85.

Logano took the lead from Busch on Lap 147, passing him on the outside of Turn 4. On Lap 164, Busch's charge to reclaim the position ended after he lost control of his Toyota on the backstretch, spinning and slamming the outside retaining wall.

Busch started the event 43rd after flying into Kentucky following the Craftsman Truck Series race in Michigan. He slid into the lead for the first time on Lap 40.

Following Busch's wreck, the race was Logano's to lose. With the race running green flag to the finish thereafter, Logano crossed the finish line 2.259 seconds in front of second place Scott Wimmer.

"It was unfortunate to see Kyle hit the fence there," Logano said. "The whole last 20 laps I was praying it would go green."

The win was the 10th overall on the season for Joe Gibbs Racing and the seventh for the No. 20 team, with four different drivers, led by Rogers.

"When you are in good equipment, you are going to run well," Wimmer said. "Joey is a great driver. The 20 car has been the class of the Nationwide Series all year long. We need to do our homework."

"Three starts, two poles, one win. He's OK," Rogers said of young Logano with a smile.

Mike Wallace picked up a position to finish third at the finish after Jason Leffler lost a tire on the last lap. Leffler finished 16th.

Nashville winner Brad Keselowski and rookie Bryan Clauson finished fourth and fifth. Clauson who turns 19 on Sunday, notched his career-best finish.

Marcos Ambrose, David Ragan, Mike Bliss, Clint Bowyer and Jason Keller rounded out the top 10.

Race attendance was a track-record 73,195. It was the eighth consecutive sellout at the facility in which Speedway Motorsports Inc. agreed to purchase earlier this year.

Keselowski gets first career victory with late-race pass

LEBANON, Tenn. -- After narrowly missing victories on multiple occasions this season, Brad Keselowski claimed his first career Nationwide Series win on Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway, taking the lead from points leader Clint Bowyer with five laps remaining in the Federated Auto Parts 300.

Keselowski led early in the event, staying on track on Lap 79 when then-leader Joey Logano led other lead-lap cars down pit road. That set the stage for the evening, putting Keselowski on a different pit strategy than most of the leaders. With his counterparts opting to make their final stop of the night with 77 laps remaining, Keselowski, under the guidance of crew chief Tony Eury Sr., made his final stop of the night 41 laps from the finish.

It initially appeared that David Reutimann would run away with the race (though he was pushing it on fuel mileage), but a caution flag fell with just 10 laps remaining after Brad Teague spun off of Turn 2. That bunched the field back up behind Reutimann for a restart on Lap 217 of 225.

On that restart, Reutimann was ambushed by Bowyer and Kyle Busch. Bowyer took the lead after contact with Reutimann but only temporarily, as Keselowski dropped his No. 88 Chevrolet to the inside of Bowyer's No. 2, taking the position.

"That's what we needed to catch back up to the 99 [Reutimann]," Keselowski said. "For some reason, David didn't go. I got behind him, took the air off of him and the next thing I knew I got by David and next was taking on Clint," Keselowski said.

"I feel like I paid some dues," he added after hoisting his first Nationwide trophy, which came in the form of a Gibson Guitar.

"To catch that break like I did with Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. and this Navy Chevrolet, it vindicates it. I've got a team that just keeps getting better every week, and I keep getting better every week. I felt like this was just a matter of time."

As Keselowski drove toward the checkered flag, things got dicey behind him. Reutimann continued to get pushed around, as he dropped back to third as David Stremme slid into the second position.

Bowyer also had contact with Stremme, dropping him to fourth at the finish.

David Ragan closed out the top five finishers.

Reutimann, Bowyer, Ragan, Busch, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Jason Leffler all flew to Nashville to compete in Saturday's race after taking part in Sprint Cup Series final practice at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., earlier in the day.

Pole-sitter Logano led 64 laps in what marked his second series event. The early favorite to win, the 18-year-old was the victim of a four-wide race through Turn 4 on Lap 89. His No. 20 Toyota got clipped by Biffle's Ford, sending him sideways into Busch's machine before shooting up track and into the outside wall. He ended the event 31st.

Hamlin wins in Dover to give JGR ninth '08 victory

Logano finishes sixth in his Nationwide Series debut

DOVER, Del. -- Denny Hamlin extended the domination of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Saturday with a convincing 1.154-second victory over Carl Edwards in the Heluva Good! 200 Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway.

The race, which started three hours late because of rain, wasn't the only victory for Hamlin, who won for the second time this season and the seventh time in his career.

Hamlin also won $200 in side bets with Kyle Busch and Michael Waltrip when teammate Joey Logano, 18, finished sixth in his series debut. Hamlin had bet Logano would finish in the top seven, but for a while, the wagers were in jeopardy.

Hamlin's win marked the eighth consecutive time and 10th time in 14 Nationwide events this year that a full-time Sprint Cup driver for Joe Gibbs Racing has won a Nationwide race.

David Stremme gained track position with a two-tire pit stop on Lap 155 and held off a determined charge from fourth-place finisher David Reutimann. Greg Biffle passed Logano in the closing laps to run fifth, followed by Logano, Brad Keselowski, Mike Wallace, series points leader Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne.

"It was fairly uneventful," Hamlin said. "We just bided our time at various times during the race and pulled away at the end. If you can get out there in clean air, your car can really take off. We definitely improved on our car, and I think our car was the strongest it had been all day at the end."

Edwards had nothing for the race winner in the final 28-lap green-flag run.

"It was all right," Edwards said of the result. "Second's no fun. It's not what we come here for. But my hat's off to Denny. He did a great job. I just wish I could have got up to him."

Stremme was pleased with his car's performance, but needed to find a way to get to the front -- hence, the pit strategy on his final stop.

"We took two tires at the end, and we felt that was a good choice," said Stremme, whose previous best finish at Dover was 16th. "Our car was strong all day. We just couldn't get track position."

Logano was forced to showcase his talent early in the race, after contact with Kahne's Dodge on pit road during the race's first caution necessitated a return trip to the pits. Logano restarted 28th on Lap 26, but by the time caution flew for the second time on Lap 46, he had gained 11 positions.

Under the subsequent 52-lap green-flag run, Logano worked his way up to eighth and gradually improved his position during the remainder of the race, until Biffle passed him in the closing laps.

"We were a sixth-place car and finished sixth," Logano said. "Overall it was a good day. I was hoping for that top five, but I screwed up in the pits and put myself in a position that I didn't need to. We'll see what happens next."

Busch led 68 laps, but a series of mishaps dropped him back in the field and ultimately knocked him out of the race. Busch entered the pits as the leader on Lap 105, but contact between his No. 32 Toyota and Keselowski's No. 88 Chevrolet brought both cars back to pit road under the third caution of the race.

Busch worked his way back to eighth, where he was running on Lap 169, when Braun Racing teammate Jason Leffler lost control of his No. 38 Toyota and knocked Busch into the Turn 2 wall. Busch, who finished 28th, held on to second place in the series standings but fell to 121 points behind Bowyer.

Notes: The aftermath of the rain that delayed the start of the race brought a couple of unusual problems. First, jet dryers on pit road blew up chunks of asphalt at the seam between the concrete pit stalls and pit road. Second, track workers dumped several bags of Speedy Dry against the inside wall to stem a torrent of water flowing into Keselowski's stall.

• In his first race back since breaking an ankle in the Nationwide race at Talladega in late April, Dario Franchitti finished 15th.

Busch wins at Lowe's to snap Gibbs' victory streak

CONCORD, N.C. -- As the second- and third-place finishing teams confronted each other in the pits, Kyle Busch was taking bows for his fourth NASCAR Nationwide Series victory of the year.

Busch won the Carquest Auto Parts 300 Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway under caution when Mike Wallace's wreck slowed the race after Busch had taken the white flag for a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the event two laps beyond its posted distance of 200.

Driving the No. 32 Braun Racing Toyota, Busch ended the four-race winning streak of the No. 20 Toyota that belonged to his full-time owner, Joe Gibbs. Denny Hamlin, who took a turn in the No. 20 on Saturday, finished second, followed by Brad Keselowski, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and pole-sitter Brian Vickers.

"Before the race, I said, hopefully we could have the Dollar General Toyota [Braun's car] come home in first place with him [Hamlin] the runner-up," Busch said.

He got his wish, but the real fireworks occurred between Hamlin and Keselowski under the final caution. Keselowski tapped Hamlin's Camry as the cars circled the track behind the pace car. Hamlin retaliated by turning right into Keselowski's No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.

"What the hell did he do that for?" asked Earnhardt, Keselowski's car owner, after the race. "Brad bumped him just a little bit under caution, and Denny knocked the fender off his car. Now the car's all tore up."

As Busch celebrated his 15th win in the series, crews from the two teams engaged in an angry confrontation on pit road, as NASCAR officials tried to keep the teams apart.

Hamlin complained that Keselowski had repeatedly failed to give him racing room earlier in the event.

"Give a guy two inches to let him clear, and don't just hang onto my rear quarter panel," said Hamlin, who made it clear that his retaliation was for the bump under caution, not for the way Keselowski had raced him. "You throw a rock, I'm going to throw a concrete block back."

Keselowski, a full-time Nationwide driver, had a different perspective.

"I race one day a week, not two," he said. "I have 200 laps to prove myself, not 400. I have to make the most of every lap."

Committed to a fuel mileage strategy, Busch stayed out on old tires and inherited the lead, when the rest of the contending cars -- with the exception of Greg Biffle's No. 16 Ford -- came to pits on Lap 163, after a wreck in Turn 3 involving Kelly Bires and Kasey Kahne caused the eighth caution of the race.

Two more quick cautions -- one when Steve Wallace and Jason Leffler wrecked in close quarters in Turn 4 and one for debris on Lap 181 -- enabled Busch to save enough fuel to make it to the finish. But Busch still had to hold off the cars behind him.

With five laps left, Hamlin made a determined move to the inside of Busch's No. 32 Toyota, but Busch surged past his teammate from Joe Gibbs Racing and held him off until Josh Wise scraped the wall the bring out the 11th caution and set up the two-lap finishing dash.

Notes: Busch led 86 laps, the sixth time he's led the most laps in a Nationwide event this year ... Keselowski's third-place finish was a career-best ... Joe Gibbs Racing had won the previous six Nationwide Series events, two by Busch in the No. 18 car, followed by four in a row (Tony Stewart twice and Hamlin and Busch once each) in the No. 20 ... Clint Bowyer finished sixth and saw his series points lead narrowed to 67 over second-place Busch.

Stewart's first Darlington win is his fourth of season

Helps put No. 20 in Victory Lane for fourth race in a row

Stewart wins first race at Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Tony Stewart held off Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s last-lap charge to win the Nationwide Series race Saturday for his first career victory at Talladega Superspeedway.

Stewart started from the pole and sat comfortably out front with Earnhardt on his rear bumper just biding his time to make a move. Caution came out with five laps to go for debris, setting up a two-lap sprint to the finish.

They raced nose-to-tail for the first lap, then Earnhardt pulled out of line to make his charge. But Earnhardt didn't have enough momentum and didn't get the help he needed to race past Stewart. It allowed Stewart to go virtually unchallenged for the final lap, as Earnhardt faded to sixth.

It was Stewart's first win in any series at Talladega, where he has finished second in six Cup Series races. His previous best finish in a Nationwide race was second last year. That race was just the first time he'd made it to the finish line in five starts, with four DNFs before it.

David Stremme finished second, his best result since he finished second in Milwaukee in 2004. Bobby Hamilton Jr. was third, and both agreed nobody had a car strong enough to challenge Stewart or Earnhardt.

"They were in their own deal,'' Stremme said. "The rest of us were just trying to run together and make our own moves.''

Stewart celebrated in Victory Lane with a young girl from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and dedicated the win to her. He said he told her before the race he'd try to win for her so she could celebrate after the race.

"I told her we'd try, now we're going to have to take her on the road the rest of the year,'' he said of his new lucky charm.

Dario Franchitti injured his ankle in a hard crash that sent him and another racer to a hospital for observation.

Team owner Chip Ganassi said Franchitti suffered a broken left ankle.

Franchitti, who came to NASCAR this season as the reigning Indy Car Series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, wrecked when his car apparently lost its right rear tire on the 10th lap.

His Dodge bounced into the wall and spun down the track, finally drifting down to the apron. It was there that the real damage was done -- a car driven by Larry Gunselman slammed into his driver side door.

Franchitti had to be helped from his car and toward an ambulance. About 90 minutes after the accident, Gunselman also was taken to the hospital for observation.