It looked like a heavyweight boxer eye-to-eye with a lightweight at the official weigh-in of a boxing match as stocky Ryan Newman faced down with skinny Joey Logano in the garage area of Michigan International Raceway after Newman drew the short stick in a racing encounter in the Carfax 400.Logano was inside of Newman as they battled side by side for 15th place through turns three and four on lap 148. Logano's car became loose and began to wiggle and slide up toward Newman's car. Newman was almost past Logano's car when Logano's right front made contact with Newman's left rear, sending Newman for a long slide sideways through the turn.
Newman didn't hit anything, regained control and went to a 23rd place finish, while Logano finished 10th.
Afterwards, there they stood, face to face, with Newman on the offense, and clearly not liking the explanation he was hearing from Logano. Just a few feet away, a raft of cameramen recorded the encounter. As the discussion continued, Newman seemed to become more upset and at one point it almost seemed to get physical.
Seconds later, NASCAR officials stepped in and separated the drivers.
"I was just wondering why he races everybody so hard all the time." Logano told ESPN. "I'm not the only one that says it every week. Of everyone out there he's the hardest one to pass. And I don't understand why when there's 70 laps to go on a two-mile race track. That's a long ways to go.
"If someone races me clean, I race them back. Me and Junior did it early in the race. He passed me and he starting passing the cars in front of him, I helped him pass them, I got back to him, he let me go. If you give some respect, you get that back."But he just races everyone hard," Logano continued. "You ask his boss, Tony Stewart. He races him hard. I don't understand it, but he's been doing it a lot longer than me. I tried talking to him about it, but I didn't get nowhere.
"There's a time to race. When you're running 400 mile or 500 miles, why do we gotta race each other so early in the race? So it's just frustrating when you're trying to get by someone at that point. It wasn't a big deal whether we passed each other or not at that point."
You might have thought Logano was the victim after that interview. But the actual victim, Newman, left the speedway without talking to the network.
The team, however, said Newman's car still "suffered damage on its left-rear from the contact with Logano, which had to be repaired throughout two pits stops."
Upon further questioning by the media, Logano explained how Newman's actions contributed to the incident.
"He just went in there and door-jammed me," Logano said. "I was down there trying to save it and trying to save it. When someone is right on you side, it takes your air off. I'm down there just hanging on and hanging on. I saved it three times before I'm like, 'I can't save this one -- he should have given me room by now."
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