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Joey Logano says no reason to give Chase Elliott ‘extra room’ at Miami

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The NASCAR America crew breaks down Brad Keselowski's win at Bristol and how incidents between Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Joey Logano prove no players are 'phoning it in' and how vital wins are.

Joey Logano says he’ll continue to race Chase Elliott as he did at the end of last weekend’s race in Miami until “respect is rebuilt” after their incident last month at Bristol.

Logano discussed the situation Wednesday morning on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Elliott made contact and wrecked both as they raced for the lead in the final laps May 31 at Bristol. Brad Keselowski won that race. Logano expressed frustration that Elliott did not immediately offer an apology after the race.

Their paths crossed late in the race at Miami. Logano was a lap down when Elliott, who led, approached to put Logano a second lap down. Logano raced Elliott hard. Denny Hamlin, running second, closed on Elliott at the same time. Hamlin passed Elliott with 30 laps to go for the lead and went on to win.

Logano said what happened at Bristol played a role in how he raced Elliott in Miami.

“You think I’m going to make his life easy after two weeks ago?” Logano said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Right? That’s racing, man. That’s the consequences. That’s how this whole thing works. I would expect it if I did the same thing. You kind of race how you get raced. You race how they race you. At the end of the race there, I wasn’t going to give any extra room. No reason I should.”

Asked about how there are many ways to get a point of view across to another competitor without wrecking them, Logano said:

“I’m not a big fan of crashing cars just for a few different reasons. For No. 1, it’s not safe. You don’t want to get someone back and hurt them. You don’t want to do that. It’s not anybody else’s fault. You don’t want to destroy someone’s race car and put all that on his team or something like that. That’s not what I want to do. I don’t know if people think that’s how retaliation is supposed to work, but I don’t really see it that way.

“But I do think that when things like that happen toward the end of the race and something that has happened so fresh a couple of weeks ago that a win got taken away from you, shoot I didn’t even finish second. I got crashed and was the last car on the lead lap after all of that.

“I felt like, you know, at that point, I just wasn’t going to make his life easy. Wasn’t planning on making his life easy here for the next few months. So, that’s just how it’s going to have to be. Eventually you just move on and everything is fine when that respect is rebuilt.”

Asked by a caller about the incident, Logano said: “I’m just looking to win races. I think it’s just kind of time heals everything, and I think that’s how that stuff works. You race people the way you get raced. Until I get raced differently, I race the same way he raced me.”