NASCAR: Joey Logano leads 199 of 200 laps to win All-Star Race

Joey Logano led all but one lap to win the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro on Sunday night.

Logano won the pole for the race on Sunday and maximized that starting spot. Logano was never officially passed under green-flag conditions and the only lap he didn’t lead came on lap 104 when Brad Keselowski was credited with leading a lap under caution.

Drivers had a hard time making passes at the restored race track in yet another example of how much work NASCAR still has to do to make its Cup Series car produce decent racing on short tracks. NASCAR implemented a second tire compound for the race that was supposed to be grippier and less durable. But that idea worked out far better in theory than it did in reality.

Logano beat Denny Hamlin to the finish line by over a second. Hamlin tried twice after restarts to get past Logano but couldn’t do it successfully. The race had four cautions and two of them were pre-planned before the race. The first came on lap two when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got punted into the wall by Kyle Busch and the other unplanned caution came when Ty Gibbs got spun around.

The most action of the night came after the race was over when Stenhouse threw a punch at Busch after a conversation.

The option tire disappoints

NASCAR tried an alternate tire for the All-Star Race for the first time since 2015 when the race was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Just like nine years ago, the idea was much better in theory than it was in reality.

Drivers were forced to start the race on the softer option tire and had one additional set of those tires along with two sets of normal tires in their pits. Teams had to change all four tires on the caution halfway through the race and then had the option of pitting — and potentially losing track position — at the planned caution at lap 150.

When Busch punted Stenhouse into the wall, all but five drivers hit pit road to change to the regular tire right away. Logano wasn’t one of them.

The drivers who pitted couldn’t catch the drivers who didn’t as the softer tires didn’t wear out that much. As Logano easily maintained the lead without changing tires in the first stage, the preferred tire choice for the field at the halfway point was the option tire since they knew there would be no issues with it making it to the end of the race.

Some teams pitted during the lap 150 caution for the alternate tires that they ran two laps on to start the race. But even those barely-used tires didn’t make up much track position. Kyle Larson was one of the drivers who pitted and he got to third briefly after the final restart but never challenged Logano for the lead. Larson, who qualified fifth for the Indianapolis 500 earlier in the day, finished fourth behind Chris Buescher in third.

Race results

1. Joey Logano

2. Denny Hamlin

3. Chris Buescher

4. Kyle Larson

5. Ryan Blakey

6. Bubba Wallace

7. Ross Chastain

8. Chase Elliott

9. Michael McDowell

10. Kyle Busch

11. Noah Gragson

12. Martin Truex Jr.

13. Ty Gibbs

14. Tyler Reddick

15. Daniel Suarez

16. Brad Keselowski

17. Christopher Bell

18. AJ Allmendinger

19. William Byron

20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.