Joey Logano addresses mid-race wreck ending dominant pole run at EchoPark Speedway

Joey Logano expressed his disappointment after an 18-car wreck derailed his dominant pole run at Echopark Speedway. The reigning champion called it a 'real bummer', but ultimately chalked it up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Logano entered the Quaker State 400 as the polesitter ahead of a barrage of Fords, including his teammates Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric. In an effort to capture Stage 1, Team Penske decided to stay out when many drivers pit during green flag conditions.

This resulted in the three drivers lodged among the backmarkers at the start of Stage 2, which would end up disastrous for the team. Up front, Denny Hamlin triggered a multi-car wreck, setting off a chain reaction that collected all three drivers and ended their day.

Notably, Logano had led a dominant 51 laps before the incident took him out of contention. Reflecting upon the race-ending incident, Logano spoke to the media and said (via Frontstretch),

"A lot of smoke and sideway cars including myself, somewhere in that mix. I don't know exactly what happened.....when the car gets turned sideways in front of everyone and it's tight right now like if as everyone's coming off, you know getting up to speed and know there wasn't much separation in the field. So once they started checking up it just piled in. So, just wrong place, wrong time, it's a real bummer."

Here's a clip of the wreck shared by NASCAR's official X handle:

Joey Logano's DNF was marked 36th in a 40-car field. The result had him losing out to Alex Bowman in round 1 of the In-Season Challenge.

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Joey Logano rues 'unfortunate' end to Team Penske's efforts in Atlanta

Joey Logano lamented a disastrous result for Team Penske, noting that their cars were 'so strong' before getting collected in the multi-car wreck. Nonetheless, he accepted the result and summed it up as 'part of the game'.

"You just see I’m in the middle of everything. So, it’s unfortunate, I think it got all of our cars. And the Penske cars were so strong, so fast. It’s unfortunate that it happens, but it’s part of the game sometimes, and as I say, sometimes you’re the ball, sometimes you’re the bat. Today, we’re the ball,” Joey Logano said via 5 Goats.

The outcome was much more frustrating for Ryan Blaney, as it marked his sixth DNF across 18 starts, while it was the second for Austin Cindric. Moreover, Blaney was marked dead last at 40th place, making it his worst finish this season.

Compared to Blaney and Logano, Cindric has just one top-5 finish to his name and was hoping to turn things around at Echopark Speedway. He showed promise early on and led 12 laps, but his efforts were undone by the wreck.