On the last restart Saturday evening at Martinsville, both Joey Logano and Austin Dillon believed they were all in strong position to fight for the victory, but neither could make that happen.

When a warning broke out on Lap 395 of the planned 400-lap race to bunch the race, William Byron had controlled much of Saturday night’s race, and his advantage over Dillon had extended to over 2.6 seconds.

As the lead, Byron started the two-lap extra on the bottom lane, while Logano lined up on the outside alongside him. Logano’s Penske colleague, Dillon, lined up behind him, as did Logano’s Penske colleague, Ryan Blaney.

Byron got out to a solid start, was able to manage for the lead, and led at the checkered flag, but Logano came close enough on the closing laps to try a last-ditch bump-and-run effort, but it was unsuccessful.

Logano recalls about the remaining two laps

“I feel like if I had a better restart the restart before (the last one) – I think I chose the wrong lane and got (Dillon) in front of me and just got stuck behind him, couldn’t pass him,” Logano said.

“But just that final restart there, I had the front row. That’s what you can ask for. Got cleared to second, and (Byron) kind of messed up off of (Turn) 4 and let me get to him, and he did a really good job of brake-checking into third, right, which is a good job.

“He did what he was supposed to do, and kind of got me all stuffed up behind him and I couldn’t accelerate off the corner and be as close as I needed to be to execute the ol’ bump-and-run.”

Logano climbed into fourth place overall, although he hasn’t won a title in nearly a year, with his latest title coming at the opening Bristol Dirt Race in 2021.

Dillon’s season has indeed been up and down so far, but Saturday night’s race was evocative of his second-place finish at Fontana, Calif. earlier this season.

On the final restart, Dillon fails.

He spent much of the last stage in the top three and, like Logano, believed he had a strategy for catching Byron on the last restart.

“I’m a little bummed. I like to pride myself in when we get in those situations being clutch, and that was anything but that on that last restart,” Dillon said. “I spun the tires pretty good through the gears.

“Once I got back in line there I had some grip, and I feel like we had good forward drive all night long and I just felt like if we got to the gears we were going to have a shot at him.

“We’ve been working really hard to make this car as good as possible. We want to get (Richard Childress Racing) a win, and that’s what we’re here racing for.”

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