Joey Logano wins NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race in Sonoma

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Joey Logano held off David Gilliland on Saturday at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., winning a race in one of NASCAR’s minor league series in a warmup for the Sprint Cup Series race Sunday at Infineon.

Logano won the Thunder Valley Casino Resort 200, a race in NASCAR’s K&N Pro Series West circuit. Gilliland, a Riverside native who mainly races in the top-tier Cup series along with Logano, finished second.

Logano, a 21-year-old who drives a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, is by his own admission less assured on twisty road courses such as Infineon than he is on oval tracks. Yet Logano also won the pole position Friday for the Cup race.

‘The main priority today was to learn’ for Sunday, ‘and I think we accomplished that,’ Logano said. ‘It was a lot of fun.’

Eric Holmes of Escalon, Calif., was third Saturday and Greg Pursley of Newhall, Calif., was fourth.

Pole-sitter Brandon Davis of Huntington Beach finished 39th after his Ford suffered a blown engine early in the 64-lap race.

The race had to be stopped for several laps on a dry, windy day when a grass fire erupted in the infield of the 10-turn, 1.99-mile track located in Sonoma wine country, a fire apparently sparked by the hot pipes of one race car that had spun out in the area.

-- Jim Peltz in Sonoma, Calif.