NASCAR Cup Series: Joey Logano’s move on Martin Truex Jr. was justified

Joey Logano’s move on Martin Truex Jr. at the end of the opening race of the round of 8 of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was completely justified.

Team Penske’s Joey Logano trailed Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. coming down the back straightaway of the four-turn, 0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia on the 500th and final lap of the opening race of the round of 8 of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, the First Data 500.

Truex Jr. had just taken the lead of the race in his #78 Toyota coming to the white flag after trying to get around Logano’s #22 Ford for several laps without moving him out of the way or spinning him out.

But with Logano, who led 308 of the race’s first 499 laps, now trailing Truex Jr. with just two turns to go in the race and a berth in the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on the line, the Team Penske driver was not nearly as courteous as Truex Jr. had been to him over the course of the previous few laps.

Logano moved Truex Jr. out of the way to take the lead. Truex Jr. tried to fight back, but in doing so, he cost himself second place (and possibly even the slight chance that he still had to win the race).

Logano ended up winning to lock himself in the Championship 4 while Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin snuck past Truex Jr. for second. Truex Jr. finished in third.

Here is a video of the drama that took place as the First Data 500 came to a thrilling end.

Was Joey Logano’s move justified?

Yes, I know that Logano has a history with making contact with playoff drivers in playoff races, particularly with Matt Kenseth in the 2015 playoff race at Kansas Speedway.

But while you might think the world is coming to an end based on how the NASCAR community has reacted to the incident at the end of the First Data 500, it isn’t like Logano totally dumped Truex Jr.

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If slight contact between two drivers, especially contact that doesn’t result in a wreck, to win a race and clinch a berth in the Championship 4 is going to draw the level of criticism that it has drawn following this past Sunday’s incident between Logano and Truex Jr. at Martinsville Speedway whenever it happens, why do the fans who criticize the driver who initiates the contact even bother to watch NASCAR at all?

Many fans complain when there is no excitement in Cup Series races, but as evidenced over the last few days, they also complain when there is. Why bother? Seriously, why bother? Why waste three-plus hours every Sunday afternoon just to complain about something no matter how it turns out?

To quote 2015 Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, “if you don’t like that kind of racing, don’t even watch.” This kind of racing is what fans pay to see — or at least it’s the kind of racing that they claim they pay to see when drivers are winning races by 10+ seconds. So why is the legitimacy of Logano’s pass even a topic of discussion among the NASCAR community at this point?

I’m not at all saying that Truex Jr. would be wrong to get payback on Logano for this incident. After all, Logano did move him out of the way and ruin his chance at winning the race, so Truex Jr. has a right to be upset, and he has a right to get payback for it. No one would fault him for it. In fact, it would be silly for him to pass up the opportunity to do so, even if he does so solely to avoid coming across as a pushover.

After all, we all know Kenseth got revenge on Logano later in the 2015 playoffs, and we know that (almost) no one faulted him for it. No one needs to be reminded of that.

But none of this justifies the idea that Logano did not have a right to go for the win and the Championship 4 berth by moving Truex Jr. out of the way. His move was completely justified. Period.

Do you believe that Joey Logano’s move on Martin Truex Jr. at the end of the First Data 500 at Martinsville to win the race and clinch a berth in the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 was justified? Why or why not?