Record elimination for Joey Logano in first round
BRISTOL, TENN. — Fate dealt Joey Logano an early DNF and a record elimination in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs Saturday night at Bristol.
Logano had a solid buffer for his spot above the cutline entering on lap 263. That is, until Corey LaJoie spun entering turn three and slide up the track.
“Coleman was saying, ‘He’s coming up. He’s coming up.’ As I was on the brakes to try to pull onto the bottom. I think it was Newman behind me, but I think someone hit him behind him and it was just kind of a chain reaction into it. Once I got hit I was like, ‘Shoot, I’ve got to go up now’ because I couldn’t make the bottom, so I committed to that and the hole closed up,” Logano explained.
The wreck destroyed Logano’s car and took him out of the race in 34th.
The defending Cup Series champion held his breathe, hoping for more calamity. While Martin Truex Jr. wrecked and brought out the final caution on lap 363, he continued to finish 19th and helped eliminate Logano in the first round.
Joey Logano has never been eliminated from the playoffs this early in the nine previous elimination-style playoffs.
“I knew my situation and what I needed to do. But it’s Bristol and there’s not really many things you do differently depending on your scenario. There’s nothing I could have done there in that wreck. It’s just a product of being back there and the way we raced or anything like that didn’t affect that. The only thing that affected that is we were back there, so that’s it.”
In fact, Logano earliest elimination was after the third round – just before the Championship Four.
Logano has one points finish worse than eighth since joining Team Penske in 2013 — 17th in 2017. This season, he is winless outside of a win at Atlanta in March.
” I haven’t really felt like we’ve made any big gains that we need to and unfortunately it seems like it’s at every track. Typically you may say, ‘Oh, we’re off on a mile-and-a-half, but our short tracks are OK or your road courses are OK.’ It just seems like we’re off everywhere right now,” Logano said.
Next week, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for 267 laps, 400 miles.
Last year, Joey Logano started and finished 2nd after leading 15 of 334 laps.
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com