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Perfect restart leads Joey Logano to first career Truck win

joey logano wins mville 1 truck 2015 Getty

Joey Logano knew if he was to win Saturday’s Kroger 250 Camping World Truck Series race, it would come down to the final restart.

Logano couldn’t have done it better, getting past Matt Crafton and sailing two final laps to earn his first career truck race victory.

“We just had a great restart,” Logano told Fox Sports 1. “Tires hooked up well, we prepped them well on the back straightaway and made sure they were clean enough.

“We got a good jump. We drove it in there and hoped for the best.”

Logano won in a green-white-checkered finish, the race going an extra laps over the scheduled 250 laps.

“It’s a lot of work here at Martinsville,” Logano said. “They make you work for these things here.”

Logano becomes the 26th driver in NASCAR history to now have won in all three pro series: Sprint Cup, Xfinity and now the Truck Series.

“It’s cool to say I’ve won in all three series now, so that’s pretty special,” Logano said.

Runner-up Crafton agreed that Logano got him on the restart.

“He timed it right,” Crafton said. “He lagged back on the restart and got a big run. I knew it was going to be chaos going into Turn 1 and I knew if I tried to block him, he was going to move me at that point.

“It’s racing at Martinsville. I had a blast.”

Rookie Cole Custer, 17, looked like he might steal the win, passing Crafton and Logano by forcing them into each other with five laps to go in regulation time. But Crafton rallied back two laps later and punted Custer, relegating him to a disappointing 16th place finish.

“I knew he was going to come back and nudge me a little bit,” Custer said of Crafton. “He did it respectfully. I was giving him all I had just to try and stay up there.”

Logano looks for a complete weekend sweep in Sunday’s STP 500 Sprint Cup race at Martinsville.

Thus far, he’s earned poles for both the Truck and Cup races, and after his Truck win, just needs to win Sunday to complete a perfect two-day effort.

Erik Jones finished third, followed by Johnny Sauter and Tyler Reddick.

Final results of the Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway:

1 Joey Logano
2 Matt Crafton
3 Erik Jones
4 Johnny Sauter
5 Tyler Reddick
6 Daniel Suarez
7 James Buescher
8 John Wes Townley
9 Matt Tifft
10 Justin Boston
11 Cameron Hayley
12 Daniel Hemric
13 Ray Black Jr.
14 Spencer Gallagher
15 Brandon Jones
16 Cole Custer
17 Gray Gaulding
18 Timothy Peters
19 Ben Kennedy
20 Tyler Young
21 Caleb Holman
22 Mason Mingus
23 Korbin Forrister
24 Jennifer Jo Cobb
25 Tommy Regan
26 Jake Griffin
27 Cody Ware
28 Norm Benning
29 John H. Nemechek
30 David Gilliland
31 Bryan Silas
32 Travis Kvapil

Average Speed: 68.214 mph
Time of Race: 01 hrs, 59 mins, 22 secs.
Margin of victory: 0.431 seconds
Lead changes: 14 among 5 drivers
Cautions: 9 for 61 laps

Follow @JerryBonkowski