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CONCORD, N.C. — Joey Logano picked up a single point, and only time will tell if that seemingly insignificant amount will make any difference as drivers in the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup regroup and prepare to head to Kansas Speedway (Oct. 16, 2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) next weekend.
The Team Penske driver spent approximately 80 laps in the garage after bouncing off the wall a second time during Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
His team, led by crew chief Todd Gordon, made repairs as best they could, then sent Logano back out onto the track in the scarred yellow No. 22 Ford. That helped him gain one more point, for a total of six in the race.
Kevin Harvick got no such second chance. Electrical issues had surfaced on the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet just before Logano crashed into the wall a second time.
There was no repairing the internal breakage for Harvick, and the 2014 series champion bowed out after 155 laps of the 334-lap event, 38th in the 40-car field.
“We’re not out by any means,” said Logano, who swept all three races in the Round of 12 a year ago. “We had a very fast car. … It was capable of winning.
“Things happen. It’s part of racing, but we’re not out.”
Logano finished 36th, one spot ahead of AJ Allmendinger whose No. 47 Chevrolet was silenced a bit later. One position and one point may not make a difference in the next two races of this round. Then again, as strange as Sunday’s race — which was postponed one day due to Hurricane Matthew — turned out to be, why take a chance?
A year ago, Logano won all three Chase races in the second round. Now, the No. 22 team will regroup and focus on Kansas and, beyond that, Talladega.
“We’re still fighting,” Logano said. “We’ve got a really good race team and we can go to Kansas and win. These two race tracks, Charlotte and Kansas, are our best ones and we proved last year that we can do it and we’ll just have to do it again.”
Harvick led once for 12 laps at CMS after starting on the pole. While he fell off the lead lap once when a round of green-flag pit stops were interrupted by a caution, he was able to get his lap back when Logano tagged the wall for the first time on Lap 117.
Barely 30 laps later, the No. 4 Chevrolet slowed and Harvick headed to the garage, done for the day.
It was the third DNF for the team this season.
“I thought it was a power issue,” he said, “so I cycled through everything. By the time I figured out what happened it just shut off. It looks like low oil pressure.
“I hate it for everybody … they made some great adjustments today and got our car back where we needed to be to run up front and everything was going fine.”
Logano (3,006) and Harvick (3,004) departed CMS 11th and 12th in the Chase standings, respectively. Only the top eight will advance to the next round.
Because other Chase drivers had problems of their own, the two find themselves just six (Logano) and eight (Harvick) behind eighth-place Denny Hamlin (3,012).
Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott also had trouble — both were involved in a late-race crash on a restart — and are ninth and 10th in points.
READ: Elliott, Dillon involved in big wreck
“Lots of things can go wrong,” Harvick said, “and today they did.”