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DILLNER: Define All Star
Written by: Bob Dillner   
01/30/2009
Charlotte, North Carolina
 
Bob Dillner is a reporter for NASCAR Victory Lane, NASCAR Live! and The SPEED Report on SPEED. (Photo: SPEED) ยป More Photos

A couple of things jumped out at me last weekend in the Toyota All-Star Showdown in Irwindale, California. NASCAR may have unintentionally set a precedent and we may have discovered a slight flaw in the all-star system.

The made-for-television event pitted the all-stars of the NASCAR Camping World East and Camping World West Series against each other in a race with no points on the line. Bragging rights were the only thing up for grabs in the “Daytona 500 of short-track racing.” It was a terrific race all the way down to the few moments afterwards when NASCAR took the win away from Joey Logano.

While Logano would probably disagree, I think NASCAR made the right call by penalizing him for rough driving and stripping him of the win. I’m a big fan of Logano’s and I think the kid has a good head on his shoulders, but he made a mistake and took the leader out on the final lap.

What Logano did was wrong. Originally I asked myself, “Joey, why did you do that?”
But after speaking with him this week, I realize there was some pent-up frustration. Everybody looks at the last-lap incident, but as Joey pointed out to me, they fail to consider what happened six laps prior when Sellers booted Logano out of the lead.

On the last lap, Logano drove his car in as hard as he could and knew it would wash up the track. He was expecting some contact with Peyton Sellers and an ensuing, heated battle to the finish. But he put Sellers in the wall and took the checkered flag first, although he didn’t have it for long.

Logano’s move was reminiscent of Carl Edwards’ run on Jimmie Johnson last year at Kansas, but the difference was that Johnson hit the brakes when he saw Carl drive it in that deep. Had Edwards crashed Johnson, it would have been the same situation we saw at the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. In the same vein, Logano wouldn’t have been penalized if Sellers hadn’t smacked the wall, just as Edwards wasn’t.

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