FORT WORTH, Texas – A blown engine and a crash have left Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. in likely must-win positions if they hope to race for a championship when the NASCAR Cup Series visits Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 7 for the season finale.
Logano was the first of the two to run into bad luck Sunday afternoon during the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 when the engine in his Ford Mustang expired on lap 299.
“I thought it was starting to maybe give up a little bit of power in that run,” Logano said. “We were just getting passed. Not really though. It just kind of let go. It is one of those days when nothing went right. The strategy didn’t go the way we wanted it to early in the race. Cautions didn’t fall the way we hoped they would and every time we started fighting our way back something happened and we ended up like this.”
He finished 30th and finds himself 43 points below the cutoff line for drivers hoping to advance to the championship race based on points. With races at Kansas Speedway and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway remaining before the finale, Logano knows what he has to do if he hopes to race for his second Cup Series title.
“Now we know what we have to do these next two weeks. We better go find a way to win,” Logano said.
Truex’s bad luck struck shortly after a restart with 16 laps left. One lap after the restart a light tap from Daniel Suarez in turn four sent Truex up the track in turn four, where he slammed into the outside wall and flattened the right side of his race car.
The damage on Truex’s car wasn’t repairable and he retired from the race, finishing 25th.
“I was definitely running tight trying to get all we could and maybe I squeezed him (Suarez), maybe he came up, I’m not sure,” Truex said. “It’s really fast right there and yeah, hit the splitter and went straight to the fence. Tough spot to have contact like that. I don’t know. It is what it is.”
While Truex doesn’t find himself in as bad of a position as Logano does, he still sits 22 points below the cutoff line in the battle to make the championship race at Phoenix.
When asked what he can do to bounce back in the next two races, Truex replied, “Try to win one of them, I guess.”
Joining Truex and Logano below the cutoff line with two races left are Brad Keselowski, who is 15 points behind Kyle Busch for the final spot in the championship race, and Chase Elliott, who is eight points behind Busch.