It was quite a crazy afternoon at Pocono Raceway this past Sunday, and Team Penske's Joey Logano didn't mince words as he voiced his opinion after a Stage 2 crash that knocked him out of the race.
Logano spoke about his frustration with how NASCAR handled the towing of his torn-up race car back to the pit lane after his on-track crash with Daniel Suarez.
The 33-year-old driver had looked like an early contender in the race and even won Stage 1. His tune quickly changed, as caught by NASCAR.com's onboard cameras, as you can clearly hear how angry the driver of the No. 22 Ford was.
Sure, the driver was hot at the moment. But after being released from the care center, Logano later told Racer.com's Kelly Crandall that the procedure for towing cars back to the pit lane does additional damage to the car, and how it needs to be addressed.
"If we can put four tires on one of (the tow trucks) with a jack and an impact that can just change the tires and let us come back, instead of dragging the car two miles around the racetrack ... It's just stupid," Logano said. "It's not fun for anybody- the poor guy driving the tow truck, the poor driver getting his head knocked around for two miles, and the poor team that's got to fix the underbodies of these things after they get dragged around ... It's dumb. I don't know. It is what it is, but it seems like it has a very easy fix. I've brought this up before, but I guess it doesn't matter."
NASCAR's Elton Sawyer Responds to Joey Logano
Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Related: NASCAR's Elton Sawyer Warns Drivers to Clean Up Restarts
Luckily for Logano, it appears someone has heard his concerns. Elton Sawyer, NASCAR's vice president of competition, addressed the tow truck situation during his weekly appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
?? ?We will go to work to figure out what the next procedure is."#NASCAR's Elton Sawyer says they?re brainstorming a solution to prevent cars with flat tires from being towed around the entire track as @joeylogano was this past Sunday at @PoconoRaceway. pic.twitter.com/foDF2YEN0S
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 25, 2023
Sawyer agreed that Logano has raised the right question and that NASCAR will be working to figure out what to do next.
"Towing it all the way around again 2 miles was not ideal, but that's really what we had to do in that circumstance," Sawyer said. "But we will go to work to figure out what the next procedure is, if you will, to be able to get the cars."
Sawyer also talked about the need to get this straightened out as soon as possible. There has to be a simpler way of getting cars with flat tires back to the pit lane.
Logano made that point when he talked to Fox's Bob Pockrass.
Joey Logano said the damage from the wall ended his day, but he thought it was stupid that there can?t be four spare tires and tire-changing equipment on one of the trucks that would have spared him being towed with four flat tires. He explains: pic.twitter.com/Wf22Oh0861
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) July 23, 2023
This isn't the first time this issue has been raised, and it sure looks as if this could be something that continues to plague the sport and drivers for the foreseeable future.
Even if Sawyer says they are working on it, it is hard to believe that NASCAR will do the right thing to fix this issue.
