NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Joey Logano had reasons to be irked in multiples in Sunday night’s NASCAR All-Star Race, from a pit-strategy call that didn’t quite pan out, an arbitrary late-race caution flag and a decisive, bruising pass from eventual winner Christopher Bell.
The last of those troubles was the most climactic, with Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota running Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford up the track through both sets of corners. Whether the maneuver was fair or foul with $1 million at stake, Logano couldn’t quite say, but dropped a hint at the retaliation that he never got to serve up.
“I mean, it is what it is. I don’t know. Sure, sure. He did it good enough that I couldn’t get back to him, because I was going to show him what fair was,” Logano said. “Just couldn’t get there. Just couldn’t get there with the tires.”
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Logano’s bid for a second straight All-Star Race crown faded into the mountain air Sunday evening, offsetting an otherwise sterling performance at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Logano led a race-best 139 of the 250 laps, but a promoter’s-choice caution period — a new feature in the All-Star format this year — flew at Lap 216, negating a 0.580-second advantage and changing the complexion of the non-points event.
No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe opted to keep his driver out on track during that break, and four other teams chose the same strategy to skip pit road. Bell exited the pits with two fresh tires and lined up sixth for the final restart — the first driver on fresh rubber. From there, he picked his way to the front, chasing down a tire-disadvantaged Logano and eventually brushing his way past with nine laps left.
Bell’s view of their final on-track conflict differed, saying that Logano’s frustration was “interesting” and that “I genuinely would not have guessed that.” His overall assessment was that his race-winning tactics weren’t out of bounds.
“Well, I had got to him a couple times before and he made it very difficult on me, as he should. I got my run and I took the moment, as I should,” Bell said. “Yeah, I don’t think that I did anything that Joey has not done, and I’ve seen Joey do much worse. We will continue on.”
Logano scratched his head after exiting his car, having a quick debrief with Wolfe on pit road. Asked if the call was the right one, Logano was blunt.
“Obviously not. Duh. We got beat by that,” Logano said, managing a laugh. “… I mean, I felt like it was 50/50. I mean, we were going to put two (tires) on, and then, last minute, we decided to stay out. I thought six cars was going to be enough (buffer), you know. I said it’s a similar situation to what Brad (Keselowski) had in the heat race — 30 or so laps on the tires, he stayed, he was able to manage. But the difference is, it’s a heat race to the feature, and what are people willing to do in a heat race versus a million dollars and for the win at the All-Star Race. It changes the game a little bit. And we didn’t fire off as fast as we needed to the first eight laps of that run.
“So yeah, just, we didn’t make the right call, right? I mean, we go down together, right? We do all this stuff together. We had the best car and we did most everything, right? We just made one decision off. So we’ll take second. What’s second pay? Not a million, I guess.”
Wolfe shared in his driver’s disappointment.
“Yeah, it sucks because we had the best car, and somewhere along the way we made a bad decision, or it didn’t go the way we needed it to go — which, that’s not uncommon,” Wolfe told NASCAR.com. “Very seldom does the fastest car win these races, but yeah, I thought we would be able to hold them off and we had some buffer cars, but (Bell) got through them too quick and got to us. Didn’t give us enough time to come for the tires to kind of equal out. Joey drove his butt off, did all he could. That’s what it is.”
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Whether Logano could’ve driven on to victory without the promoter’s yellow in a relatively clean race is up for hypotheticals. As the clock ticked down to a looming Lap 220 deadline, the suspense morphed into a question of when, more than if.
Even though most drivers and many in the packed house knew it was coming, the odds-on eventuality didn’t soften the impact.
“When you lead that many laps, you have the fastest car and a gimmick caution beats you, it just sucks,” Logano said. “But it is what it is. You move on and be happy that we had the best car the last two times we’ve been here. Wish we had two wins, though.”
