Joey Logano laments playoff elimination, calls it a ‘real bummer’

Joey Logano crashed out on lap 265 of the Bristol race.

Joey Logano laments playoff elimination, calls it a ‘real bummer’

Joey Logano (Via IMAGO)

Defending NASCAR Cup series champion Joey Logano had a disappointing end to his chase for the title as an early race crash prompted his elimination from the Round of 16. He finished four points off Bubba Wallace, who secured the final spot for the Round of 12. He was joined in the bottom four by former Cup champion Kevin Harvick.

On lap 265 of the race, Logano was taken out by Spire Motorsports’ Corey LaJoie. The No:7 Car spun and slid onto the inside wall before returning to the track and collecting The No:22 Ford Mustang and other drives around him. Logano, who started the race with 12 12-point buffer, was now wishing for his playoff rivals’ misfortune.

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While talking about the disappointing result, Logano pointed out that the result was a real bummer for the No:22 Team Penske Racing team. He pointed out that the damage to the car due to the crash was too much. The P34 at Bristol was the third-worst finish of the Ford driver’s 2023 season behind Las Vegas and Pocono disappointments.

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“Obviously, it’s a real bummer. You get out of the race like that, and you’re behind the wall, and you’re in denial for a minute.  You don’t want to believe that it happened, and you want to think that it’s fixable, but the car was tore up too bad,” Logano said, as reported by Motorsports.com.

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Joey Logano explains what went wrong for him at Bristol

Bristol is a track that is known for drivers getting caught up in each other’s mess. Hence, it was no big surprise to see Logano getting collected. It ended what could have been a smooth entry to the R-12 for the team.

Joey Logano
Joey Logano (Credits: @NASCAR/X)

Logano blamed his crash on the fact that he was racing that far behind at mid-way to the race. He pointed out that if he had a better track position, the crash could have been avoided. The two-time champion added that he was helpless once the Sapre car spun and caused chaos.

“I knew my situation and what I needed to do, but it’s Bristol, and there’s not really many things you do differently depending on your scenario. There’s nothing I could have done there in that wreck. It’s just a product of being back there, and the way we raced or anything like that didn’t affect that.  The only thing that affected that is we were back there, so that’s it,” Logano said.

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