With his victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, Penske Racing’s Joey Logano is the first to earn an automatic bid into the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway in three weeks.
The 2018 NASCAR Cup Series champion spoke to the media before Saturday’s qualifying and shared his thoughts on the 1-race suspension NASCAR handed out to Wallace this week for aggressive driving at Las Vegas.
“I think there’s a few things that go to all that, what’s acceptable to NASCAR and what’s acceptable to you as an individual,’’ Logano said, conceding he was sometimes regarded as overly-aggressive early in his career too.
“I always say sports tests your morals and tests your character a lot of times and sometimes it’s tough to balance all that in the heat of the moment. It’s hard to imagine yourself inside a race car if you haven’t done it before.
“You sometimes make decisions that you’re not proud of later on, but you learn lessons every time. I’ve made mistakes and made dumb decisions inside race cars that I regret, but I’ve learned from every one of them and feel like I really know where my line is now – years later. But I know what my line is and what is acceptable and what is not.’’
The driver of the No. 22 Penske Racing Ford said he was glad to see the sanctioning body step in and make a definitive call on acceptable competitive behavior. And Logano expects that to be front of mind this weekend.
“There’s a line between ‘boys have it’ and ‘you’ve gone way too far,’ ‘’ Logano said. “It’s one thing if someone knocks you out of the way and you knock them back out of the way. That’s one thing. It’s different if someone pushes you up a little bit and you right-rear hook them into the wall at 180 mph … that’s a different story.
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