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Mechanical issues befall Joey Logano, Chase Elliott to start playoffs’ 2nd round

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Joey Logano is forced to the garage for repairs at the start of the Dover Cup race and eventually returns to the track 22 laps down.

Defending NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano and last week’s Roval winner Chase Elliott have started off the second round of the playoffs with mechanical issues.

As cars were taking parade laps prior to taking the green flag for today’s opening race of the Round of 12 at Dover International Speedway, Logano brought his No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang to pit road.

“I think something has broken in the rear end of the car,” Logano said to his crew on the team radio, according to NBCSN.

Logano took his car to the garage and his team worked on fixing the problem. Logano was able to return to the track on Lap 23 and finished 34th.

As for Elliott, he suddenly slowed on Lap 8 and radioed into his team that he believed the motor in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro blew up. After working under the hood on pit road, the team pushed Elliott’s car to the garage. After working on it for roughly 30 minutes, the team could not repair the issue and Elliott was ruled officially out of the race. He finished last in the 38-car field.

“Just had an engine failure of some sort, unfortunately we really don’t know what it was,” Elliott told NBCSN. “It really didn’t seem like anything was off. We were just making laps and then obviously had a failure. It’s an unfortunate way to start this round for sure.”

Elliott -- who won this spring at Talladega, which is next on the schedule followed by Kansas -- knows what lies ahead for him if he is to advance to the Round of 8: “I assume I’ll have to win one of these next two weeks.”

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