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Auto racing notes: Joey Logano uses restart to win truck race at Martinsville

Ap

Joey Logano passed Matt Crafton entering the first turn to start a two-lap sprint to the finish and won an exciting NASCAR truck race at Martinsville (Virginia) Speedway on Saturday.

The Daytona 500 champion won for the first time in the series to become the 26th driver to win in all three of NASCAR’s top series.

The green-white-checker finish came after a wild near ending in which 17-year-old Cole Custer slammed into the back of Crafton’s truck in the first turn, sending both Crafton and Logano wide while Custer took an inside line for the lead.

Crafton then caught Custer and sent him spinning, bringing out one more caution to set up the finish.

Crafton, the two-time defending series champion, hung on for second, followed by Erik Jones and Johnny Sauter.

IndyCar

IndyCar champion Will Power will start the first race of his reign from the pole.

Power twice broke the track record in Saturday qualifying through the temporary street circuit in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. He was briefly bumped from the top starting spot by new teammate Simon Pagenaud, but quickly reclaimed it with a lap at 1 minute, .6931 seconds.

His lap at 1:00.6509 in the second qualifying group stands as the track record, breaking the mark of 1:00.928 by Sebastien Bourdais in 2003.

In all, Team Penske swept the top four spots in qualifying and will hold down the first two rows when today’s race begins. Pagenaud qualified second and was followed by Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Takuma Sato qualified fifth and Bourdais was sixth.

Formula One

Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang, while Mercedes’ run of nine straight front-row lockouts in Formula One came to an end as Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel qualified second.

Vettel was only seven hundredths of a second off Hamilton’s time at Sepang International Circuit as Ferrari showed it could challenge Mercedes in today’s race.

Nico Rosberg was third for Mercedes while Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo qualified fourth.