Joey Logano looked to have the right strategy late in the GoBowling.com 400, with four fresh tires and 30 laps to go, but instead was swept up in an accident not of his doing and finished a disappointing 38th on Saturday night at Kansas Speedway. Logano started the event in the 14th position in his No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford Fusion. Early on, Logano made up a little ground and broke into the top-10 by lap 25. The AAA Insurance Fusion was tight and crew chief Todd Gordon made both air pressure and wedge adjustments to try and keep up with the changing track conditions as the sun set and temps cooled off. Logano found himself a seventh- to 10th-place car for the rest of the evening and ran there until, with less than 30 laps to go, Gordon called Logano into the pits a final time for four tires. With several of the cars in front of him either staying out or taking just two tires, Logano looked to be in prime position to get to the front and contend for the win. On the ensuing restart, Logano made several daring moves and was racing for the fifth position when two cars in front of him, including teammate Brad Keselowski, spun and slid up the track. Running the high lane, Logano had nowhere to go as the No. 11 of Denny Hamlin slid up in front of him and he slammed into the side of Hamlin’s car. The damage to the No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford was terminal and Logano had to settle for a 38th-place finish, his second-straight DNF. It’s the first time in his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career that Logano has suffered back-to-back DNFs.

“It was just a racing deal. I had nowhere to go. I don’t know what we need to do to shake this bad luck. We have fast cars and we are executing. We just need to put it all together. I thought we had a shot there at the end. We had four fresh tires and Todd (Gordon) and the guys had gotten the car to where it was driving pretty good. We had a great restart, got by the 4 and was going to get by the 2, 11 and the 42 in a couple of laps. We had some speed right there at the end and had tires when the guys up front didn’t. If we could have gotten by them, we could have raced those guys up front. It’s just disappointing, but we will hold our heads high and go onto Dover.”