• Joey Logano held off a hard charging Kevin Harvick to win the Hollywood Casino 400 Sunday afternoon at Kansas Speedway. Logano took the lead for the final time on 223 and held off Harvick over the next 45 laps, crossing the finish line .312 seconds ahead the No. 4 Ford. With the victory, Logano clinched a spot in the Championship 4 and will race for his second NASCAR Cup Series title November 8 at Phoenix Raceway, reaching the title race for the fourth time in seven years. Logano used speedy service from his Shell-Pennzoil pit crew to grab the lead on the final round of pit stops and then held off Harvick down the stretch for the win.
• The driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford started the race on the free side but ran inside the top-five until the competition caution on lap 25. Crew chief Paul Wolfe made the call for four tires and an air pressure change during the stop but Logano continued to battle a loose-handling Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang. He dropped to ninth position when Stage 1 ended on lap 80. During the stage caution, the crew made more adjustments with air pressure and wedge to give Logano more security on both corner entry and exit.
• Logano continued to build loose during the early laps of Stage 2 and nearly dropped outside the top-10. Midway through the segment Wolfe made the call for a major trackbar adjustment during a green flag stop. During the third caution with just 15 laps to go in the second stage, Logano returned to pit road for a four-tire stop. Logano was credited with a 14th-place finish at the end of the stage and during the stage caution, Wolfe made the call for two tires, moving Logano up to second-place for the restart on lap 168. The gutsy call for track position worked. Logano was running sixth at the time of the fifth caution on lap 199.
• Logano restarted fourth and moved to the second position with 60 laps remaining in the event. A caution flag displayed with 45 laps remaining brought the field back to pit road where quick work by the Shell-Pennzoil crew moved Logano into the lead for the restart on lap 223.
• From there, Logano protected his lead against a fast closing Kevin Harvick. The two Ford Performance drivers were never separated by more than a second until the checkered flag was displayed, with the driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford taking the checkered flag and collecting his 26th career victory.

 

“You come into this race knowing that if you can win this thing you have an amazing advantage. The same thing happened in 2018 when we raced for the win at Martinsville knowing that we have two races to battle for nothing but the championship. I can’t believe it. Especially the way the beginning of the race was going and running back there not scoring stage points. It was a good strategy by Paul and good pit stops and now this Shell Pennzoil Mustang is going to race for a championship at Phoenix.”