"William’s got a payback coming to Joey" - Jeff Gordon warns Joey Logano that his move on William Byron is going to bite him

Joey Logano celebrates in the Ruoff Mortgage victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway
Joey Logano celebrates in the Ruoff Mortgage victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway

Joey Logano bumped William Byron out of the way at the Darlington Raceway, according to Jeff Gordon who has driven down to the Victory Lane 93 times during his career. Gordon stated that he wished Logano had driven differently. He went on to say that Logano should know that there will be retaliation.

Jeff Gordon has himself had a long and illustrious career in motorsports and recognizes when malicious intent is present. In 2012, NASCAR fined Gordon $100,000 and deducted 25 points for intentionally wrecking Clint Bowyer's car at Phoenix International Raceway.

When asked if Joey Logano's move was fair, Gordon avoided a straight answer:

“I wasn’t in the car. I’m not driving. Those guys have to settle that out there. I would have liked to have seen it done differently. I’m sure Joey’s going to justify it, and William’s got a payback coming to Joey, I’m sure, at some point. So that’s the way it works.”

Jeff Gordon, who is the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports the most successful Cup Series team, was present at Darlington on Sunday and saw Joey Logano collide with Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron. In an interview, Gordon called Logano out for unnecessarily ruining Byron's race.

In his statement, he said:

It’s unfortunate to see a win be taken away from him on the last lap like that. You know, Logano’s aggressive. And, I mean, William’s car, I believe, was getting really, really loose. So, Logano had a shot at him to do it clean and chose to do it a different way. That’s Cup racing, and this was a wild day and tore up a bunch of cars.”

Joey Logano bumped William Bryon to take the win at Darlington Raceway

William Byron went to Joey Logano's side on the final restart to make the pass and, finally, cleared him for the lead. With only 25 laps remaining and a clear racetrack in front of him, William Byron appeared to be on track for his third victory of the season.

With 10 laps to go, it was clear that the race was far from over, since Logano's No. 22 Ford had reverted to the form that had seen him lead over a 100 laps earlier in the race. With the last two laps left, Byron was leading the race, with Logano in the hunt for the lead.

Logano was able to pass Byron into Turn 3. He bumped Byron from behind, sending Byron into the wall and allowing him to grab the lead and win the race.


Joey Logano, for one, thought that William Byron deserved it. Byron had earlier raced Logano up the track on the final restart of the race, causing Logano to scrape the wall going out of Turn 2 as they battled for the lead.

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Edited by Anmol Gandhi