Zane Smith completed second, Tyler Reddick was third, Ryan Preece was fourth and Chris Buescher was fifth after the conclusion of 5 — depend ’em, 5 — additional time durations, whereas many of the remainder of the sphere both crashed, ran out of fuel, or each.
Logano’s common working place all through the race was 15.1. Smith’s was 28.8. Preece’s was 23.6. Earlier than the warning got here out for an Austin Cindric spin to arrange the primary additional time try, all three of them have been working effectively outside the top 10. 5 yellow flags later, all three of them ended up ending within the prime 4.
In the meantime Denny Hamlin, who was main earlier than the race was turned upside-down, ended up ending twelfth after he was compelled to pit for gasoline. Ross Chastain, who was second, ended up wrecked with a Thirty third-place consequence.
Kyle Larson fell to 3rd from eighth, Kyle Busch went from fourth to twenty seventh and Ty Gibbs from fifth to twenty third.
Mileage could range concerning how truthful it’s for a race to finish the way in which Sunday’s did — some will declare that it is all a part of the character of the game whereas purists will argue NASCAR ought to return to letting races end beneath warning with the intention to stop these circus endings.
Regardless, although, it is a reminder that whereas a driver’s end is what goes down within the report books, it usually is not reflective of their full efficiency and cannot be taken at face worth as such.
Whereas it is to not discredit Logano’s win, nobody who watched Sunday’s race from begin to end can say he had the perfect efficiency. He in all probability did not even have the Tenth-best efficiency. He merely discovered himself in the best place on the proper time, with crew chief Paul Wolfe’s name to depart him on the observe by way of all of the late cautions whereas working on fumes miraculously paying off.
Smith is an much more excessive instance. He ran exterior the top-30 on pure tempo for many of the afternoon, climbed up in direction of the top-20 attributable to pit technique within the last stage, after which sat and watched whereas all people else’s race went down the drain.
You’ll be able to’t blame him for maximizing his consequence, however it would not change the flukish nature of how he earned it.
Such is the character of NASCAR racing, although. On this regard, it is in contrast to another sport in that what occurs through the first 90 p.c of an occasion will be rendered successfully meaningless by exterior components.
Think about if, throughout an NFL sport, a staff was main by a number of scores with possession of the ball within the last minutes … only for the scoreboard to spontaneously reset and now that staff should drive down the sphere once more to win the sport.
That is what occurs in NASCAR on a semi-regular foundation, and we should keep in mind that when it comes all the way down to the top of the 12 months and we’re all quibbling over who deserves the championship or who has had the perfect season; reciting stats reminiscent of top-10s or common end or full-season factors with no context as to how these finishes have been achieved.
Logano performed by the identical guidelines as everybody else in Nashville, however his win would not transfer the needle a complete lot when assessing his efficiency in 2024.
Lengthy story quick: The tip consequence could also be what each driver fights for, however it may be fairly random at instances. Sunday was a type of instances after which some.