BRISTOL, Tenn. – Somewhere under the thick red haze floating over Bristol Motor Speedway, Joey Logano took the checkered flag for NASCAR's first Cup Series race at a dirt track in 50 years.
The Logano victory closed a weekend of uncertainty and even some hysteria as NASCAR launched this drive through the dirt.
“It’s only my fourth dirt race ever, so I had a lot of fun trying to figure it out," Logano said.
It was impossible to handicap this first dirt race because the teams had no idea how to prepare and the drivers had wildly varying experience.
"In dirt racing you don’t have a windshield in front of you, so you can pull a tearoff.