Race Weekend Central

Joey Logano’s Day at The Glen Ends Early

What a difference a day makes.

On Saturday, (Aug. 4) Joey Logano dominated the Zippo 200 en route to his 50th career NASCAR national series victory.

But on Sunday, his Go Bowling at The Glen was over before it even started.

A lap 3 incident, which forced the driver of the No. 22 off track wound up being the end of the Middletown, Conn. native’s afternoon at Watkins Glen International.

“I don’t really know what happened there,” Logano said after exiting the infield care center. “But on the race track, we all were actually racing the heck out of each other at the start of the race. And it was fun.

“I was trying to keep the nose on the car and was going to try and make a run on (Kyle) Larson off the carousel. I was right on him and they checked up in front of him and he lifted. Nothing he’s supposed to do, he checked up, I ran in the back of him and there’s just not enough bumper on the front of my car, apparently. And just knocked the radiator out of it. Pretty immediate when it happened. Same problem two weeks in a row.”

A caution came out immediately after Logano ran off the track for Aric Almirola hitting the wall exiting Turn 7. Under that yellow flag period, crew chief, Todd Gordon called Logano to the garage, where their race subsequently ended.

“I don’t really know what happened in the garage, what the whole repair situation is,” he said. “It’s somewhat confusing I think to all of us sometimes to understand exactly how that works.”

NASCAR instituted the damaged vehicle policy at the start of last season, stating that once a team goes to the garage to repair damage, that team’s race is over. If mechanical, the team is allowed to re-enter the race. Logano’s problem was not mechanical, hence, NASCAR applied the rule.

Logano is locked into the playoffs by virtue of his victory earlier this season at Talladega Superspeedway. He finished 24th at Watkins Glen one year ago.

About the author

Davey is in his fifth season with Frontstretch and currently serves as a multimedia editor and reporter. He authors the "NASCAR Mailbox" column, spearheads the site's video content and hosts the Frontstretch Podcast weekly. He's covered the K&N Pro Series and ARCA extensively for NASCAR.com and currently serves as an associate producer for SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and production assistant for NBC Sports Washington. Follow him on Twitter @DaveyCenter.

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