“The fuel mileage game, I don’t know how that goes away” - Joey Logano unclear over removal of divisive aspect from NASCAR races

NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 - Qualifying
NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 - Qualifying

Joey Logano recently shared his take on what he feels about the fuel-mileage game on superspeedways. The fuel-mileage subject is one that has come into action over the last few years, but came into prominence earlier this season at Daytona. And now recently with Talladega, this subject has come up once again.

Logano expressed how he feels about drivers slowing down on the racetrack to save fuel to get some advantage in a pit stop and gain some advantage back on the track. This has been something that is being looked at as a problem to fix by NASCAR. But as for the #22 driver, the real issue lies elsewhere.

The 2x Cup champion claimed that to him, the issue is that they can't move through the field.

"We can't pass cars. So everyone's scared to pull out of the line because it's just like hitting a wall. It's like hitting a brick wall. It just stops. All your momentum stops. That's the issue," Logano said (via SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

As for the fuel-mileage subject, Logano isn't sure how one could deal with that. However, there was one option he proposed that could lead to an interesting scenario.

"The fuel mileage game, I don't know how that goes away. The only way to me that goes away is if you put a mandatory two-tire stop within the stage because then you're not waiting up fuel anymore because that's about what it would take if you're wide open if you put two tires on, give or take. That's the only thing I can come up with without adding stages and I heard all the stuff people talked about, 'We should add stages.' Going wide open is not more interesting to me," he added.

Logano emphasized that to him and in his opinion, the fuel-mileage game is "more interesting" than when drivers are going wide open.


NASCAR claimed to look into the fuel-mileage strategy earlier this season

After several drivers decided not to go full-throttle in the Daytona 500 earlier this season, NASCAR's Elton Sawyer made a statement on the subject. Sawyer claimed that they would look "deeply" into this matter.

“Ultimately, we want to drop the green flag on the race and they’re racing as hard as they can until they drop the checkered flag. There’s some strategy in between there, and we will definitely take a much deeper drive into this particular situation and the strategy that goes into it," Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

These comments from the NASCAR official were made back in February. Since then, a superspeedway race has come and gone in Talladega. So, anything that the governing body wanted to look "deeply" into, a testing ground for that has come and gone from the schedule. The next superspeedway race will be at Daytona in August.

Until then, it'll be interesting to see if NASCAR comes up with a solution or something new on this subject.

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