The initial start of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Loudon wasn’t the only controversy.
After a nearly one hour and 45-minute rain delay, rain that came on lap 6 and ended with Kyle Busch crashing, the field restarted; Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford however was still sitting on pit road as the field got ready to rake the green. Logano and his crew were penalized by NASCAR for working on the car under the red flag.
The car was held for two laps. Logano however spent the race clawing his way forward making up those 2 laps and coming home 4th.
After the race Logano disputed the penalty.
“When you come to your home track all you want to do is win,” Logano said. “A straight kick to the gut to start the race with a piece of rubber getting in the linkage, the throttle linkage, and not letting me get wide-open. All we did was take a picture under the red flag, underneath the hood to see what was under there. We took a picture with a camera phone and they gave us a two-lap penalty for that.
“I understand the rules are the rules, but it’s also a safety factor and the last thing you want is a throttle to stick and get hurt. I don’t know. Hindsight is 20/20, but you would never know what it was if you didn’t take a picture, but it still had the piece of rubber in it. It’s frustrating. We got a good finish out of it, but it’s frustrating when you’re at your home track and you feel like you could have got a win out of it, out of a safety issue that we got a penalty for.”
Unfortunately, and probably unbeknownst to Logano, NBC had already aired footage from Logano’s roof cam taken during the red flag that showed a crew member going under the hood, with no camera phone.
Caught on camera.
You can’t work on your car under a red flag, and Joey Logano’s team was penalized two laps for this. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/ErAV1YC0uA
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 18, 2021
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.