Joey Logano’s first win of the 2022 season came in a dramatic fashion as he had to bump and run on William Byron.
As the two cars entered turn 3 with just two laps remaining at Darlington Raceway, Logano’s No. 22 Ford hit the bumper of Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet. As a result, Bryon’s car hit the wall, which ruled him out of not just contention to win but he could only get a 13th place finish.
As for Logano, he beat Tyler Reddick to get his first win of the season, making it the 11th consecutive season the Team Penske driver has won at least a race in.
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Logano defended himself that his move came as a reaction to Byron’s way of racing against him and that it would have been reasonable for Byron to be upset only
“if I punted him out of the way for no reason to win the race without him doing something to me in the past at any point… He never has in the past, and it’s not like he meant to fence me,” Logano said. “I don’t think he meant to run me in the wall. The — he did. It’s racing and it kind of took the win out of my hands, so at that point you’re going to have to do what you have to do to get the lead back in the same manner. He got it, so that’s kind of how that works.”
Take a look at the contact between Joey Logano and William Byron on the restart, and the ensuing bump-and-run.
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“He came off of Turn 2 and drove me right into the wall. At that point, I’m lucky my car isn’t broken. I’m a very angry driver, and I think anyone in the field would probably agree: If someone is going to be willing to do that to you, well, the gloves are off at that point,” Joey Logano said.
However, Byron was of the opinion that he made almost no contact with Logano. After the race, he called out Logano as an “idiot” but Logano was not in the mood to give any thoughts to Byron’s criticism and said that he had been called worse before.