Start: 6th
Finish: 35th

Stage One: 1st
Stage Two: 35th

Points: 10th

Joey Logano forged his way to the front in the opening laps of Sunday’s HighPoint.com 400 at Pocono Raceway, gaining three positions on the first lap as he chased down the leaders from third in the running order prior to the afternoon’s first caution on lap six. The handling of the No. 22 Verizon Frontline Ford Mustang started to free up over the course of the first run of the day, allowing Logano to take the lead from the inside of row one on the following restart. Logano went on to lead the remaining 21 laps in Stage 1 while holding off a hard-charging No. 5 behind him, resulting in his third stage win of the season. Several of the leaders opted to come to pit road during the final laps of the opening stage, shuffling Logano to 17th in the running order following a four tire stop and a round of adjustments at the stage break. On the ensuing restart, Logano was collected in a multi-car incident in turn one and made contact with the outside wall, resulting in all four tires going flat which required a tow all the way back to his pit stall. The No. 22 team worked to repair significant damage to the left front toe link and used up all of its allotted time under the damaged vehicle policy as Logano rejoined the field six laps down in the 36th position. Due to the damage sustained in the wreck, Logano was unable to meet minimum speed and took his Ford Mustang to the garage on lap 55 to bring an abrupt end to the day in Pocono.

“I had a run down the center, which is great and that was going to put me in a really good spot into turn one, and my car fired off really well in turn one. We saw that in the restart before that, so I felt real confident about putting myself in a tough position because I knew my car could handle well, and it just started squeezing up and when I came back up to avoid the cars on the inside the outside of me I had to check up just a little bit and it just got the No. 34 into my right-rear. It turns so quick that there’s no chance of saving it, just turn it around and then you kind of slide and hope not to get hit, which, luckily no one hit me, but the wall did enough damage.”

WHAT’S NEXT: The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Richmond Raceway on Sunday, July 30 for the Cook Out 400. Coverage begins at 3:00 pm E.T. on USA, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.