LOUDON, N.H. - Joey Logano took the lead from Kevin Harvick with 26 laps remaining in the Sylvania 300 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday and held on through two late race restarts for the win.
"This is my home race track, the coolest place to win for me," Logano said. "I could never pick a better race track to win. I watched my first Cup race here when I was five and I won that other Cup race here, but I just felt like I had to win one the right way here, and this means so much."
With his victory -- his fourth of the season -- Logano joins Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski as the two drivers guaranteed advancement to the next round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup by virtue of Chase race wins.
"I've got to thank all the boys at Team Penske. We're doing what we've got to do to win this thing right now -- both teams are -- and I'm proud of that," Logano said. "It feels good to go into the next one. We've got to keep doing what we're doing though. We've got to keep our eye on the prize and think about the big trophy at the end."
Four drivers will be eliminated after every third race and a win guarantees a driver an automatic berth into the next round. The first cutoff race is next week at Dover International Speedway.
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Kyle Larson got by Harvick on a green-white-checker restart to take runner-up honors. Harvick finished third.
"It was a really good race for us. Our Target Chevy wasn't even a top-15 car the first 100 laps, and Shine (Chris Heroy, crew chief) and everybody on this Target team did a great job to get me in the game," Larson said. "They made some big changes there under the second or third caution, and it felt like a totally different race car.
"So hats off to my guys. Thanks to Chip (Ganassi, car owner), Felix (Sabates, car owner), Chevy, Target, everybody. I always get close when Chip is here, I just can't get a win it seems like. Maybe sometimes I'll get a win with Chip here."
After the yellow flag waved only twice in the first 170 laps of the 300-lap race, cautions came often the rest of the way, with 13 additional yellow flags waving in the remaining 130 laps. Several Chase drivers fell victim to the caution incidents, including Denny Hamlin, Keselowski, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Kasey Kahne and Matt Kenseth.
Keselowski started the race on the pole, and Hamlin got up to second at the green flag. Pit strategy mired Keselowski back in the field during a competition caution on lap 37 when he took four tires while the other front-runners took two. Hamlin, meanwhile, restarted with the lead. But Hamlin's efforts went sour when he suffered a fuel pick-up issue and then later got caught up in a wreck on lap 181.
Harvick took his first lead on lap 71 and ran up front until he was beaten off pit road by Logano during a lap 171 caution. Logano maintained his lead through several cautions, while Keselowski worked his way back toward the front, despite a spin on lap 195.
Brian Vickers took the lead by staying out during a caution on lap 212, and Keselowski moved up to second on the restart that followed. Soon after a restart that followed on the lap 223 caution, Keselowski retook the lead for the first time since lap 37.
"We had a lot of adversity," Keselowski said. "I made a few mistakes that got us behind, but (crew chief) Paul Wolfe and the crew did a great job of getting us back in position. I was kind of an up-and-down day and I guess we ended on an OK note."
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Harvick moved back to the front for the lead on a restart with just under 40 laps to go, but lost that lead to Logano on the restart that followed the 13th yellow flag of the race. In all, Harvick led a race-high 104 laps, while Keselowski and Logano each led more than 70.
"It was just a good day for us. We had a fast car," Harvick said. "Track position is tough and it wound up being really hard racing there and Brad moved me out of the way and I got up out of the groove. And then at the end there, NASCAR must not be able to see the lines on the restart there and the No. 22 (Logano) was way early all day. But all in all, we did what we had to do and I just enjoyed racing that hard."
Jamie McMurray finished fourth and Jimmie Johnson was fifth. Finishing sixth through 10th were Aric Almirola, Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
NOTES: Brad Keselowski headed to New Hampshire with a chance to become the first Ford driver to win three straight Sprint Cup races since Rusty Wallace, former driver of the same No. 2 Penske Ford entry now driven by Keselowski, in 1994. ... Keselowski won the race at New Hampshire earlier this year. ... Matt Kenseth won last year's Sylvania 300. ... There were 13 different winners in the previous 13 races at NHMS prior to Sunday's Sylvania 300, a record tie with Texas Motor Speedway, but the streak ended with Logano. Keselowski's pole-winning lap of 27.090 seconds/140.598 mph on Friday was a track qualifying record at New Hampshire. ... Corey LaJoie, son of former NASCAR driver Randy LaJoie made his Sprint Cup debut on Sunday but spent time in the garage because of a mechanical issue and then spun late in the race.
