Mammoth Blog

The 19-year-old rookie Joey Logano became the youngest driver to win a race in Nascar's top series, capturing a rain-shortened Sprint Cup race Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.

Logano, raised in Middletown, Conn., came back from a crash that put him a lap down earlier in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 and won in his 20th Cup start.

He was among a group of drivers who moved to the front of the field after falling out of sequence on fuel stops. Logano took the lead when Ryan Newman, who was trying to stay on the track as long as possible with rain threatening, ran out of gas on Lap 264. The event was scheduled to go 301 laps.

The four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon moved into second and was steadily cutting into the lead as Logano, with a nearly empty gas tank, conserved as much fuel as possible. But the rain began falling three laps later.

The competitors ran six slow laps under caution before Nascar stopped the race in hopes of drying the track. But the rain began falling harder, and the race was called after 273 laps.

"I guess I'd rather be lucky than good right now," Logano said as he waited for the decision to end the race.

Logano, at 19 years 1 month 4 days, broke the record set by Kyle Busch for the youngest winner. Busch, now 24, was 20 years 4 months 2 days when he won at California in September 2005.

Kurt Busch, who won a rain-shortened event here last June, finished third. He was followed by David Reutimann and Tony Stewart, the series leader by 69 points over Gordon.

The race was slowed by 11 caution flags for 47 laps. The ninth one came out when Logano spun, hitting the wall in Turn 4 on the 1.058-mile oval.

That cost Logano a lap, but he regained it on the next caution flag, earning a free pass because he was the first car a lap down. source>>>