DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon were both critical of Joey Logano’s actions before a multi-car crash late in Sunday night’s Daytona 500.
Eight cars were collected in the incident, which brought out the caution on Lap 187 of the 202-lap race.
Running fifth, Logano dived from the top lane to the middle lane. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. blocked and there was contact. Logano bounced off Kyle Busch’s car on the inside and then contact with Stenhouse turned Stenhouse into Ryan Blaney and Busch. Also collected were Noah Gragson, Chase Elliott, Todd Gilliland and Cole Custer.
“Looks like the fastest car got in a hurry to get to the wreck,” Busch told Fox about Logano. “Logano was by far the fastest car today, saw a lot of laps led and he could do about anything. The Penske cars were very strong. We still got 20 laps to go and he’s trying to go through the middle and make a hole that isn’t there. Just created chaos.”
Busch, who is winless in the Daytona 500 in 20 attempts, finished 34th.
Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, also was critical of Logano’s actions.
When Daytona 500 winner William Byron was asked if drivers were making dumb moves during the race, Gordon interjected: “Joey did.”
Byron responded: “Yeah, that’s fair.
Logano, who led 43 laps before finishing 35th, explained his move and called out Stenhouse’s block.
“From my perspective, I felt like to win the race I had to get to the second row in my line there,” Logano said. “I was in third and needed to get to second.
“I saw the opportunity to drop down and get underneath the (Stenhouse) and have (Noah Gragson), another Ford, behind me. Then Stenhouse threw a late block there. I checked up for it and it looked like he was going to go back up and grab the top lane, so I went back in to try and close the gap again, but he kept coming down.
“I am checking up, but at that point the checkup has already happened behind me and everybody is all over each other. I can’t get out of it and then we made contact. It is unfortunate. We had a good Shell Pennzoil Mustang. We had a good car but just couldn’t get it done.”
