Logano, Herbst take heavy hits in Talladega crash

Joey Logano and Riley Herbst both walked away from scary impacts in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Both were involved in the same multi-car wreck through the trioval as the field came to the five-laps-to-go signal. It started when Logano spun off Carson Hocevar's bumper as the top lane stacked up behind Ross Chastain. Chastain led the outside lane, trying to stay on the lead lap.

Logano first hit the outside wall nose-first, then flipped when Chase Briscoe came along. The car slid on its roof for nearly 20 seconds before stopping past the start/finish line near Turn 1.

“It looks like I just got a little push in the wrong spot there,” Logano said. “It was very much a ‘Talladega Nights’ moment like, ‘Oh, no. I’m upside down. This is not good,’ moment. But I can’t thank the safety crew enough. They did an amazing job flipping that thing over. The car did a great job.

“The last time I flipped, it was crushed on my head. This time, I don’t think anything really caved or crushed at all. I appreciate what NASCAR has done. Thank you to the safety team for getting me out of there. There were some vicious hits in that one. I’m just happy to be alive.”

The previous flip was in the 2021 race. It occurred going into Turn 3 and visibly damaged and caved in Logano’s roof.

As the car slid on Sunday, Coleman Pressley, Logano’s spotter, assured his driver he wouldn't be hit by oncoming traffic. Pressley immediately shifted from spotting the draft and the wreck to telling him that “nothing is coming right here. There is nothing coming. There is nothing coming that is going to hit you. There is nothing coming that is going to hit you.”

Logano, however, never responded on the radio because they became disconnected during the incident.

“I’m fine,” he said. “The radios got disconnected and … I was thinking about my wife. She was probably wigging out on me, but I tried talking to whoever I could, but when I flipped, everything came off out of the pockets there. It was a hell of a ride. I don’t know if I should be mad that I wrecked or happy to be alive.

“I think I’m more happy to be alive. Screw the rest of the stuff, but it was a wild ride there. We were in position to do something pretty good there and it’s just the end of the race scenario. You feel it coming. You know it. I saw the cars that were around me, and I was like, ‘This is not how I dreamed it up,’ but it is what it is.”

Herbst ended up with a wrapped wrist but said he was OK after hitting both the outside wall and slamming into the inside wall during the crash. He was collected when the crash started, hitting the outside wall with the right side of his Toyota before it bounced back across the track and slammed the inside wall nearly head-on at high speed.

“It was a big one, but just thank you to 23XI (and) Toyota for the support,” Herbst said. “It’s been an up-and-down year, to say the least. I thought we had a shot at it there at the end. We got shuffled out a little bit, but came back and ultimately just got caught up in that wreck at Talladega.”

Herbst ended the interview by saying, “My dad always said, ‘If you’re going to be dumb, you better be tough.’ So, cheers.”

NASCAR will take Herbst’s car to the R&D Center for inspection.