Former NASCAR champion Joey Logano was critical of the actions Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway by Bubba Wallace, saying the 23XI Racing driver could have cost Kyle Larson his life.
After Larson squeezed Wallace’s No. 45 Toyota into the wall on Lap 95, Wallace moved down the track and hit Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet in the right rear. Larson slid up the track into a heavy driver’s-side impact with the outside wall after contact with playoff contender Christopher Bell.
After the drivers climbed from their cars, Wallace walked down the track to yell at Larson and push him several times.
“The retaliation is not OK in the way it happened,” Logano said Tuesday during “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “If he spun him to the infield, maybe it’s a little better, but right-rear hooking someone in the dogleg is not OK. I don’t know if everyone realizes how bad that could have been. That could have been the end of Kyle Larson’s career. That to me was what was on the line. Or his life. That is the worst spot to get right-rear hooked into a corner. The dogleg is pretty sharp. When you come in and hit the angle that he hit, in a way, he was lucky to hit (Bell) a little bit to soften it a little bit.
💭 "That could've been the end of Kyle Larson's career. That, to me, was what was on the line. Or his life."@joeylogano shared his strong thoughts on the incident at Las Vegas involving Bubba Wallace and Larson 🎧⬇️ #NASCAR
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) October 18, 2022
🗣 "There's no room for that. You can't do that." pic.twitter.com/yGQXoJpc3E
"(Larson) might have flush-hit that thing in the side. And then game over. There’s no room for that. You can’t do that. If it’s under caution and you’re banging doors. I don’t know that that’s OK, either, but at least you’re not putting someone’s life at risk. ... I don’t like using cars for a weapon.
“If you’re that mad, just get out and fight him. That’s fine if that’s what you really want to do and that’s how you want to handle it. That’s fine. You can make someone’s life hell if you want to racing them, but do I think just straight up blasting them into the wall is OK, no. Because the consequences are way bigger than just a race, and you’ll live with regret the rest of your life. That’s the bottom line. If you seriously injured somebody in retaliation for something that wasn’t huge, I don’t think you can live with yourself after that. I don’t want to take that risk.”
NASCAR announced Tuesday afternoon that it has suspended Wallace for Sunday’s Homestead race because of his on-track actions.
Wallace apologized for the incident Monday night.
Logano won Sunday’s race to advance to the Championship Four at Phoenix Raceway.