Joey Logano's wild roller coaster ride at Dover

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on September 28, 2009 at 8:38 AM, updated September 28, 2009 at 9:14 AM
2009 Dover Sept NSCS Joey Logano accident.jpgJoey Logano's car starts to roll over after being hit by the No. 43 of Reed Sorenson. (NASCAR / Getty Images)

Joey Logano's rookie season will be remembered for his lone victory (so far) at New Hampshire and for Sunday's wreck at Dover.

Logano was fortunate to walk away unscathed after doing a barrel roll seven times across the track at Dover in one of the worst wrecks of the season.

It started on Lap 32 when Bobby Labonte was cleared by his spotter and pulled down in front of Logano in the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota. Logano checked up, which caused the No. 14 of Tony Stewart to bump him and send him spinning down to the apron. Logano's car then came back up the track, hit the wall and was speared by the No. 43 of Reed Sorenson. The impact caused Logano's car to roll violently.

Also collected in the wreck were the No. 7 of Robby Gordon and the No. 1 of Martin Truex Jr.

Logano was OK but shaken up pretty badly after being released from the infield care center.

"It just really scared the heck out of me," Logano said. "That was pretty much the biggest thing was -- I was firing the whole time and I'm not 100 percent sure what happened. Spotter was clearing me low. I got down there and then they checked up getting into the corner. Looked like I got tagged from behind -- I'm not really sure. I haven't seen a replay yet. I'm not sure I want to see a replay. It started rolling and I was in there like, 'Please make this thing stop.' And it wouldn't. It just kept going and going. I was fine. It goes to show how safe these cars are.

"You can't go on a roller coaster any worse than that," he said. "I'm just still shaking. That's all. I'm fine. I'm not even sore, which is really surprising after all that. I'm just happy it landed on its wheels. When I was on my side, that's when I was getting worried for a minute, but it came back down. Thank God the good Lord was with me on that one."

Stewart was upset by the wreck also, which involved the driver who took over his old ride at Joe Gibbs Racing.

"I've never felt sicker in my life than when we hit Joey (Logano) like that," Stewart said. "We hit him a ton. I didn't see it coming -- that was the worst part. He had to check up, something happened in front of him to make him have to do that and I don't know what it was. When he did, we drilled him in a spot where we were supposed to be wide-open on the race track. You could tell something made him check-up first. You just can't see through the cars."

It was Sorenson's car that pushed Logano's and caused it to roll.

"It looks like the 96 (Labonte), for some reason, checked up," Sorenson said, "and that caused the 20 (Logano) to check up and that caused Tony (Stewart) to get into him. I went up the track when I saw the 20 spin. I had to slam on the brakes and try to miss Tony because he was on the brakes hard and then the 20 came back across in front of us and the 1 was pushing us. It's just one of those deals."
Truex also sustained heavy damage in the wreck.

"I didn't see a whole lot," Truex said. "I just heard the spotter yelling that they were spinning out. I was hoping they would be gone by the time I got there and they weren't. You just can't slow down here. You go off in the corners so fast and they were wrecking right there before the middle of the corner."

Gordon said there wasn't much he could do to avoid the wreck.

"All I remember seeing was the 20 car down on the bottom, and he just shot across the track. Looks like he must've got pushed to the bottom or something happened going into (turn) three. I went to the high side trying to slow down and unfortunately we got caught up in it," Gordon said. "I'm glad that Joey's good. I remember being stopped and looking at thing flipping and flipping and flipping and flipping. I was excited to see him climb out."