Joey Logano came two laps short of victory at Bristol Sunday.
Logano was looking for the lead from Denny Hamlin when he and Hamlin got together with under 10 laps to go. Hamlin was sent spinning and hit by the 78 of BJ Mcleod ending Hamlin’s day after he led a race high 131 laps.
The green came out with five laps to go with Logano leading being chased by Chase Elliott. With two to go, Elliott and Logano got together sliding up into the wall and giving Brad Keselowski a clear lane and a path to the win.
Logano was scored 21st, Elliott 22nd.
“He wrecked me,” Logano said after talking to Elliott on pit road. “He got loose underneath me. The part that’s frustrating is that afterwards a simple apology — like be a man and come up to someone and say, ‘Hey, my bad.’ But I had to force an apology, which, to me, is childish. Anyways, man, we had a good recovery with our Autotrader Mustang and had a shot to win. That’s all you can hope for. I passed him clean. It’s hard racing at the end, I get that. It’s hard racing, but, golly, man, be a man and take the hit when you’re done with it.”
For his part, Elliott seemed to have kinder, gentler take on what had happened.
“Oh, just going for the win,” he said. “You know, trying to get a run underneath and got really loose-in. I don’t know if I had a tire going down or if I just got loose on entry. But, as soon as I turned off the wall, I had zero chance of making it.”
As for an apology.
“I’ll certainly take the blame,” Elliott said. “I don’t think so, I just got loose and got up into him. Yeah, you know, I feel like that was my shot. He was really good on the short run and I feel like I had to keep him behind me right there in order to win the race with only three or four laps to go. I hate we both wrecked. But you can’t go back in time now.”
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.
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