Logano punishment called ‘dumb,’ ‘silly’
LOUDON, N.H. — Joey Logano was parked in NASCAR’s penalty box.
Logano was forced to strap in, put on his helmet and sit on pit road in the No. 22 Ford for the duration of a 50-minute Cup series practice Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. NASCAR punished Logano and his Team Penske team because the car failed inspection four times Friday before an aborted qualifying attempt.
NASCAR teams routinely hold cars for allotted periods of time at practice for various infractions. But NASCAR said it was the first time a Cup driver was benched for the entire practice.
Logano sipped his water bottle while inside the car on an 80-degree day.
“I had time for a lot of thoughts in there,” Logano said. “Mainly, that it’s a total joke. I don’t know why it has to be on pit road. There’s no reason to sit out there. It’s dumb.”
Logano shook hands with fans as the rest of the field sped by during practice.
“I just think it makes our sport look dumb,” he said. “I think we can accomplish the same thing in a more professional manner.”
Logano wasn’t alone in criticizing NASCAR for the decision. Dale Earnhardt Jr., long NASCAR’s most popular driver, tweeted it was “silly” to make Logano sit on pit road.
“I’ve no issue with making him miss practice. Him sitting on pit road with what amounts to wearing a dunce hat is highly unnecessary,” Earnhardt tweeted.
Kurt Culbert, managing director of integrated marketing and communications, fired back at Earnhardt on Twitter: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine. Simple logic here. EVERYONE knows the rules on this one.”
“But the ‘hold’ part of the practice hold is to be held on pit road. That’s intended to be part of the infraction (as is missing track time),” Culbert tweeted.
Logano’s real punishment is starting last Sunday in a Cup race.
He had some company for a spell on pit road from other drivers forced to sit and think about how their teams broke the rules. Martin Truex Jr. was forced to miss 30 minutes of practice because his No. 78 Toyota failed inspection three times before the playoff opener last week at Chicagoland in Joliet, Ill.
Truex would win the race and earned an automatic berth in the second round of NASCAR’s playoffs. His celebratory burnout caused the Toyota to blow a rear tire, the type of damage that could affect the results of post-race inspection.
Truex is hardly alone in the past few years among winners who seemingly do more damage to cars through burnouts and donuts than over several hundred miles in a race.
Earnhardt said drivers should know how to celebrate a victory without tearing up a car. Earnhardt said it was hard to see the logic in NASCAR penalizing his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliot for having a piece of tape applied to the rear spoiler, while race winners drive into victory lane with “the car tore all to hell.”
NASCAR stood by its process.
“We’re confident that our process provides a fair playing field for all of our competitors while also allowing the fans to enjoy the celebration of the winning driver,” Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said in a statement. “In addition to the pre-race inspections, every winning vehicle must still go through a full post-race inspection where we expect it to be within the rules set forth by the rulebook.”
Earnhardt said drivers intentionally blow out tires and wondered just how exactly crews might tinker with a car once it’s up on the jack for new tires before it goes through post-race inspection. “But until they tell them not to do it, it’s fair game,” he said.