What a ride Joey Logano went for on Sunday at Dover. Fortunately, he escaped without injury but it sure did look horrible. When I saw it happen, it reminded me of a story that Jimmy Spencer shared with me one time about an accident he had at Talladega. I spent some time with Jimmy handling his media opportunities when he drove the McDonald’s car, so he provided me with a lot of funny stories . . . and made me a part of some of them.
I think it was back when Jimmy drove the No. 98 car for Travis Carter, he went for a similar journey like Logano did Sunday. Jimmy didn’t barrel roll, but his car became airborne down the backstretch and stood up on its nose. Jimmy said everything got real quiet and when he opened his eyes, he saw the frontstretch grandstand. He knew then it was time to hold on. As the story goes, the car landed back on its wheels and Jimmy drove it back around.
The incident probably had a bigger impact on Ken Schrader that day than Jimmy. Schrader thought he was seeing things because when he came back around under the caution, Jimmy had driven the car back to the pits. Schrader communicated to his crew that he knew he saw somebody up in the air the last time he was back there but now they were gone. According to Spencer, who has never let truth stand in the way of a good story, it took Schrader’s crew a few minutes to convince him he wasn’t seeing things.
Logano’s crash on Sunday is another testament to the cars that these teams build. Logano admitted it scared him, but what 19-year-old wouldn’t be shaken by such a violent crash?
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