For Logano, no ill effects of spectacular Dover crash (cont'd)

One of those post-crash phone calls came from Tony Stewart, who nudged Logano from behind in tight traffic as the accident began to unfold. Stewart called Greg Zipadelli, his former and Logano's current crew chief, on Monday to get the young driver's number.

"That was the first time Joey had gotten upside-down, he told me, so it was definitely a new experience for him," Stewart said. "I told him I've probably been upside-down more in sprint cars than he will [be] in his whole career. That was a pretty big wreck. That's the hard thing about these cars. You can't see through them to see what's going on in front. My intention was to follow Joey right in the corner, and all of a sudden he had to jab the brakes really hard because of somebody going down in front of him. But it just was a bad spot on the track for that to happen."

Hold on tight

The past couple seasons have had its share of violent, jaw-dropping crashes with drivers walking away.

• Logano at Dover
• Edwards at Talladega
• Logano in the Shootout
• McDowell at Texas
• Gordon at Las Vegas

Logano said he felt a little stiff afterward, but thanks to the variety of safety devices that now surround drivers in the current Cup car, had no other problems. And the crash won't make him hesitant when he gets back on the race track Sunday.

"I don't think so at all," he said. "If anything, it's going to give you more confidence, because you can go through that and come out of it fine. Like I said, I've taken harder hits than that, and I was more sore. That was just a longer one, and I was fine. So, if anything, it's going to give you more confidence when you're in the next corner. I don't think at all that it's going to do that. Actually, I didn't even think about that, and I was watching Wind Tunnel when I got home that night. So, I hadn't even seen the wreck yet. And someone called in and was like 'I don't think Joey's going to do that, whatever.' And that didn't even cross my mind. Oh well, I guess you have to prove everyone wrong again. We'll go for it."

And yet, more experienced drivers say big crashes do often have a lingering effect that leads them to review much of their safety equipment. That's exactly what Carl Edwards did after the hardest crash of his career, a hit that was so violent, the Roush Fenway driver thought his teeth had been knocked out. Soon afterward, he reevaluated his seat, double-checked his belts to make sure they were tight enough, checked the length of the tethers on his HANS device, and in general paid more attention to the items surrounding him in the cockpit.

"Joey's wreck, Michael McDowell's wreck at Texas, that wreck at Talladega -- we complain a lot about these race cars, but I think what NASCAR did, taking the steps to build these cars the way they did, I can't say thanks enough," said Edwards, whose car went airborne into the catchfence at Talladega in the spring. "It's good to see Joey walk away from that. When something like that happens, there's something wrong with you if you don't take a minute and think, are my belts tight enough? Is my seat the right seat? It reminds you. Fortunately, we can be reminded without someone being hurt. I saw his interview, and I think that got his attention. It got everyone's attention out there."

According to Jeff Gordon, who took one of the hardest hits of his career last year at Las Vegas, the accidents that stick with drivers the longest aren't necessarily the most dramatic, but those in which they're at fault. "When you make a mistake that gets you into a bad wreck, then that will take you back a bit for a little while," he said. "But it doesn't take long to build back up to that. I'd be surprised if that slows Joey down."

Logano didn't seem slowed down Friday. He spoke on Thursday to Johnny Benson, the former Truck Series champion who suffered serious injuries in a late model crash earlier this year. They didn't talk about crashes -- they talked about racing.

"I think all of us drivers, OK, we are going right back at it," Logano said. "Johnny Benson actually called me [Thursday] before we left the house. I was talking to him, and obviously, he had a lot worse wreck than I had. And we didn't even talk about that. He's talking about how he's getting ready to go jump in a late model, or something like that, coming up. He doesn't even think about that. If anyone should, it probably should be him. I don't think any of these drivers out here even think like that."