Things seemed to move in slow motion as Joey Logano’s car flipped onto its roof and slid down Talladega’s front stretch, fuel leaking as his radio went silent. With his wife, Brittany, likely watching in horror, he had no way to send the team a message about how he was doing. It was then, trapped inside that upside-down car, that he had one rather terrifying thought.
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“Honestly, the scariest thing is just when you’re sitting upside down, and you’re seeing fuel leak out. You’re seeing all this stuff. And I’ve never felt like I can’t get out of a race car before, and I kind of felt like I couldn’t get out if I had to,” Logano told the media.
Unbuckling and climbing out was not an option, so he had to wait for NASCAR’s safety crews to reach the car and roll it back onto its wheels. While he did walk away unhurt, the experience shook him.
“The first hit was a good one. The first one ended at a wall, and then it went up in the air, and I thought, oh, s***. That’s really the thing that came to my mind,” Logano told the media, Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass reported on X. “Because it got pretty quiet there, and the brakes weren’t working anymore, which was a bad sign. And it flew for a while, and then you land, and you just hope not to get hit again because you’re just sliding upside down.
The incident happened on Lap 183, with five laps remaining. Logano was running the outside lane with Ross Chastain ahead of him and Carson Hocevar behind. As the field bunched up through the tri-oval, contact sent the Ford into the outside wall, and Chase Briscoe then struck it, flipping Logano over.
The car slid on its roof for hundreds of feet as the accident grew into a 15-car pileup. The red flag flew for roughly 13 minutes while crews tended to the drivers and cleared the debris, and Logano climbed out under his own power once the car was upright.
Logano also had no way to answer his team during the slide. The crash damaged his radio equipment, leaving everyone on the box without word from him while he sat on his roof. He later explained what likely went wrong.
“I’m sure I lost my antenna,” he added. “Because I slid upside down for a mile. And then, yeah, my radio was kind of hanging down by me. Everything was pretty good. All things considered, on what could have happened. I would like to have said something. I tried to. I tried connecting my radios back up, and something probably got disconnected somewhere in that mix.”
With his radio disconnected, Logano also couldn’t immediately reassure his wife, Brittany, that he was fine. He later joked about her likely reaction to watching the crash,
“She was probably wigging out on me… but when I flipped everything came off out of the pockets there. It was a hell of a ride,” Logano said.
After being evaluated at the infield care center, Logano was released and said he felt fine. Asked how he felt about the result, he made clear which emotion won out.
“I don’t know if it’d be frustrated because I wrecked or happy to be alive, and I’m kind of choosing the first to happy to be alive at this point. It was a long time to be on the lid,” he told the reporters.
Logano Praises NASCAR’s Safety Improvements
Despite three Cup Series championships and three Talladega wins, Joey Logano was shaken by the crash. It also recalled his 2021 Talladega flip, when the roof crushed toward his head. This time, he credited NASCAR’s safety improvements for helping him escape without serious injury.
“The last time I flipped, it was crushed on my head,” he recalled. “This time, I don’t think anything really caved or crushed at all. I appreciate what NASCAR has done.”
He also praised the safety crews saying, “It was very much a ‘Talladega Nights’ Oh no I am upside down, there it not good moment, I can’t thank the safety crew enough…They did an amazing job flipping that thing over”.
Carson Hocevar takes responsibility
Hocevar, meanwhile, who was pushing Logano when the crash began, did come out to take responsibility for his contact that sent the No. 22 spinning. He explained that he had been watching his mirrors and looking to his left as the racing lanes came together.
“I was more so looking at my rearview, and when I looked up, it was more so because I felt a bump, and I just hit him in the rear at the wrong time,” Hocevar said.
The 23-year-old also acknowledged that he and Logano had been making progress together before the crash, making the outcome even more disappointing.
As far as the blame game goes, though, Logano was not interested in pointing fingers. He mentioned that Chastain was racing to stay on the lead lap and had every right to fight for his own result.
“Everyone has the right to go racing,” he added. “He’s racing for himself as well. I don’t know, was he one down? I think so. He got the free pass. Now he’s on the lead lap, and it wasn’t his fault we wrecked. I don’t know if you really blame it on anyone. It’s just what speedway racing is these days. It really sucks at times. At times it’s pretty awesome, and at times you end up on your lid, and you say it sucks. I like Martinsville.”
Chastain ultimately finished fourth, while Logano was classified 34th. The win here though is the fact, that he got to get out of that car fine and go back to his wife and family.