Joey Logano was involved in a multi-car incident in the closing laps of Stage 2 that brought the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford’s day to an early end at Michigan International Speedway, resulting in a 33rd-place finish Monday. The green flag waved on the FireKeepers Casino 400 Sunday afternoon after rain delayed the original start time as Logano maintained his starting position of 14th for a majority of the opening stage. Following a caution on lap 38, Logano took the green flag from 14th with three laps to go in the stage before coming away with a 16th-place result. After staying out during the stage break, rainfall again approached the track as the Stage 2 restart was waived off and cars were brought down pit road on lap 52, ultimately delaying the remainder of the race until Monday morning. When the action resumed at the two-mile oval shortly after 11 a.m., Logano worked his way into the top-10 despite a tight-handling condition in the corners. Crew chief Paul Wolfe made the call to run long during the green flag cycle before bringing Logano down pit road on lap 95 while running second for four tires, fuel, and a round of adjustments. Just over 10 laps into the ensuing run, Logano had a right rear tire go down off of turn two and the caution came out shortly after. However, Logano was penalized for too fast entering on pit road and went a lap down as a result. On the opening lap of the following restart – with Logano starting at the tail-end of the field – the No. 5 spun in front of the pack in turn four to set off a multi-car incident as the No. 22 suffered front-end damage while trying to check up. After Logano brought the Shell-Pennzoil Ford to pit road, the 22-team found terminal damage to the radiator to bring their day to an abrupt end.
“We had that right-rear tire go flat right before [the wreck], which put us back there down a lap and then I think [Kyle Larson] just spun out in front of me and kind of caused a big wad and a Daytona-type crash. There was nowhere to really go. I couldn’t steer it left, so I just committed to maybe if I could slow it down enough, I could center punch it, and it wouldn’t be that bad. That was my only option there. Unfortunately, we got knocked out a little early. We were fighting for probably a top-10. We weren’t that great. If there were more wrecks we could maybe have ended up with a top-five but we will move on.”
WHAT’S NEXT: The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action on Saturday, August 24, for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 under the lights at Daytona International Speedway. Coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
