Joey Logano speaks out about fuel saving strategy on superspeedways

“The issue is we can’t move through the field,” Logano said. “You can’t pass cars. And so, everyone’s scared to pull out of line because it’s just like hitting a wall, like hitting a brick wall. It just stops, all your momentum stops. That’s the issue. The fuel mileage game — I don’t know how that goes away. The only way to me that it goes away, is if you put a mandatory two-tire stop within the stage because you’re then not waiting on fuel anymore. That’s about what it would take if you were wide open.

“That’s the only thing I can come up with without adding stages and I’ve heard all this other stuff people have talked about. I don’t think we should add stages. But going wide open is not more interesting to me. I think the fuel mileage game is more interesting than when they were wide open. My opinion.”

Joey Logano takes stage victory at Talladega

Logano, who won Stage 2, finished P19 at Talladega.

There was perhaps no greater example of what Logano described than when Kyle Busch jumped out of line in the closing laps, looking to make a run to the front. Ty Gibbs jumped out in front of him in hopes of getting a third line going, but the pair immediately fell to the back of the pack. A Dale Earnhardt Sr. march to the lead this was not…

Busch couldn’t hold back his frustration after the race.

“Ride in line [and] finish where [you are],” Busch wrote on X. “TRY to race for win [and] finish last. I hate these [explicit] cars!!!”