DOVER, Del. — Joey Logano savors the times he led Joe Gibbs Racing into Victory Lane.
Turns out, he enjoys beating JGR so much more.
Logano changed his team and his car, just not the result, and raced to his third straight Dover victory in the Nationwide Series on Saturday.
Unlike the last two, Logano won for Penske Racing. His previous two Dover victories came under the Gibbs banner.
This time, Logano held off JGR drivers Brian Vickers, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch for the checkered flag.
“I wanted to beat them really bad,” Logano said.
Busch, who won the Truck Series race Friday, dominated most of the race and led 72 of the 200 laps. But he was 10th off the final restart, couldn’t drive his way to the front of the field and was fifth.
Vickers was second, Kenseth third, and Trevor Bayne fourth.
Logano raced to his first Nationwide victory of the season after winning nine times last year.
“It is amazing to finally win for the captain, Roger Penske,” Logano said. “It feels good to get back in Victory Lane.”
Logano won for the 19th time in 114 career Nationwide starts.
Busch was trying to sweep the NASCAR tripleheader at Dover but fell short in trying win all three for the first time since 2010.
With the race under caution, Busch took four tires while Logano went with two on the final pit stop. Logano led the field to green and pulled away.
“It’s my fault. I’m aggravated with myself,” Busch said. “I made the wrong call there. I just figured more would take four.”
The 23-year-old Logano came into NASCAR with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008 with the nickname “Sliced Bread.” He’s yet to make the leap to the next level and won only two Cup races. JGR wanted to keep Logano even after signing Matt Kenseth. But they didn’t have the pieces in place for a fourth full-time Cup team, and AJ Allmendinger’s failed drug test opened the No. 22 seat at Penske Racing that Logano pursued.
“This is definitely fun to come to Dover and finally beat those Gibbs cars,” Logano said.
Logano credited crew chief Jeremy Bullins for making the right call and going with two tires on the last pit. Bullins made a last-second audible to go with two after he saw Busch and go with four.
“That was the only thing I was watching,” Bullins said. “I was watching to see what they did, and saw a bunch of cars coming that had taken two so we knew we would have a cushion and opted for two tires at the last minute.”
Good call. Busch was denied his third straight Nationwide win and seventh of the season.
“To finally beat that 54 car, that was the team I worked with for the last seven years or so since my Nationwide debut really,” Logano said. “To beat them means a lot to me after they have been winning so much this year.”
Points leader Regan Smith was ninth. Vickers jumped from fifth to third in the standings, 42 points behind Smith.
“We need to chip back away at the points where we’re really racing toward a championship,” Vickers said. “It was a good day, but we want to win.”
Leave that to Logano.
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