At a point in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season when he desperately needed a big race, Joey Logano turned in one of the best performances of his NASCAR Cup Series career in Sunday’s Window World 450 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the first points race at the North Carolina short track in nearly 30 years.
Logano led 323 of 450 laps and held off Denny Hamlin in the closing laps to snap a 45-race winless drought and put himself back above the Chase cut line with five races left in the regular season.
The win is the 38th of Logano’s Cup Series career. He also won the 2024 All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro and finished runner-up to Christopher Bell in the 2025 running.
After Logano built up a gap to start Stage 3, Hamlin chopped the deficit after the final round of green-flag pit stops. But Logano was able to carve his way through lapped traffic more easily than Hamlin, which ended up being the deciding factor.
“A win anywhere at this point would’ve sounded great,” Logano told TNT. “What a great car. [Crew chief] Paul Wolfe, what a great car he put together for us today. It feels good to get back in victory lane. I feel like I know exactly what I need to to go fast around this place.”
“The pressure was there for sure. Denny was pretty good there that last run.”
Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen rounded out the top five, with Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski, Todd Gilliland, Daniel Suarez and Ryan Preece completing the top 10.
Notable results
Other notable finishers include Ryan Blaney in 11th, William Byron in 12th, Carson Hocevar in 13th, defending Cup champion Kyle Larson in 15th and Chase Elliott in 17th.
Gibbs nipped van Gisbergen at the line to win Stage 1, while Logano cruised to the Stage 2 victory.
Josh Berry finished 36th after a Lap 199 crash with Christopher Bell, while AJ Allmendinger finished last (37th) after breaking a right-rear toe link.
