This weekend, the NASCAR Nationwide Series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Saturday’s running of the Indiana 250. It’s a companion race to the Sprint Cup Series’ Brickyard 400, now formally named the Samuel Deeds 400 at the Brickyard. It’s also the last of four Dash 4 Cash races for the Nationwide Series this year.
But before we look ahead to Indy, lets look back to last weekend’s stand-alone Nationwide event at Chicagoland Speedway. Joey Logano, the only Sprint Cup regular within the top-35 of the championship points standings in that series in the Nationwide Series race field at Chicagoland, claimed the win. His Penske Racing teammate, Sam Hornish Jr., took runner-up honors to give car owner Roger Penske the one-two finish.
Hornish, Elliott Sadler and Austin Dillon combined to lead most of the race. Hornish started on the pole and led the first 49 laps before he was beat off pit road under caution by Sadler and then was moved farther back in the running order because of a pit road speeding penalty.
Sadler then led until just past the halfway point of the race when Dillon wound up ahead of him after a cycle of green-flag pit stops. Sadler spent a few extra seconds on pit road while his team took extra time getting his car full of fuel.
By that time, Hornish was already back inside the top-five. After Logano’s first stint up front several laps later, Sadler returned to the lead, with Hornish in second. Hornish took the lead from Sadler on a restart with under 40 laps to go and remained up front until Logano took the lead for good on the final restart with 23 laps to go. Logano and Hornish then ran first and second the remainder of the race.
“I don’t know if it was the car to beat,” Logano said of his No. 22. “At the beginning, it was a third or fourth-place car, but (crew chief) Jeremy (Bullins) made the right adjustments throughout the race to make the car better.”
Dillon also got by Sadler in the closing laps to finish third. With his third-place finish, Dillon was the highest-finishing among the four eligible Dash 4 Cash drivers and claimed his second-straight $100,000 bonus.
“That’s awesome,” Dillon said. “I’m really proud of these guys. I think we were just one adjustment away from the win today.”
Sadler finished fourth and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Brian Vickers, rounded out the top-five.
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