Talladega Superspeedway can turn a fight for the win into a fight to escape a wrecked race car in seconds. Joey Logano experienced that reality when his No. 22 Ford was launched into the air and landed on its roof with five laps remaining in the YellaWood 500. Trapped inside the overturned car, the three-time Cup Series champion could do little but wait for NASCAR’s safety crew to reach him.
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His eventual escape brought relief, but the crash left more to the story than the frightening images suggested. Days later, Logano explained why the rollover was not the impact that left him sore, while reflecting on the people who helped him through the ordeal.
“I feel pretty good. I feel really good, actually,” Logano said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Just was a little bit sore for a couple of days, kind of as expected, and I don’t think it was from the roll; I think it was from when I hit the wall. It wasn’t a fun experience to begin with, which was honestly a little bit scary. But for the most part, everything did its job the way it was supposed to. The car did a good job structurally; the safety gear inside—everything worked really well.”
The crash unfolded on Lap 183, with five laps remaining. Logano was running in the outside lane behind Ross Chastain, with Carson Hocevar behind him. Contact in the tightly packed group sent Logano sideways toward the outside wall. After striking the barrier, his Ford took further contact from Chase Briscoe’s Toyota, lifting the car off the ground and turning it upside down.
The No. 22 slid along its roof across the frontstretch before coming to rest near Turn 1. The 15-car wreck brought out a red flag that lasted approximately 13 minutes as safety crews worked to clear the track and assist drivers.
Logano remained inside the damaged Ford until the safety team could assess the situation and right the vehicle. The sight recalled his previous Talladega rollover in 2021, when he said the roof structure had been crushed close to his head. This time, he credited the car’s structural integrity and the equipment protecting him.
But the hardware was only part of what made the response stand out. For Logano, the crew’s handling of those tense moments mattered just as much as getting the car upright.
“The safety crew I have the most compliments for did an incredible job getting for one, making me feel comfortable because the first person that was there asked if I was okay and then immediately said, ‘You’re not on fire,’” Logano said. “That’s the only thing I was scared about at that moment. It was like. Can I get out of him on fire right now? That’s what I was worried about; it kind of just made me feel better there. They flipped it over to me. I thought it was pretty quick, and it was really smooth. Everyone did a really good job.”
Logano eventually climbed out under his own power, drawing cheers from the crowd. He was grateful for the crew’s work, but there was one aspect of the response he wished could have been better.
“I wish I could have told my family that I was okay when I was sitting there upside down,” Logano added. “That’s the one thing we probably could have done better. I think everybody thought the worst because it took a while to get any communication to anybody. But outside of that, it went really well.”
The crash had knocked out Logano’s radio connection, leaving him unable to reassure those watching from outside the car. His spotter, Coleman Pressley, tried communicating with him, but Logano could not respond. His family was left watching the wreck without knowing immediately that he was safe.
That uncertainty was particularly difficult for his wife, Brittany, and their children. Just days before Talladega, the couple had announced that they had officially adopted two children they had previously fostered, expanding their family to five children.
Joey and Brittany were already parents to Hudson, Jameson, and Emilia. The adoption marked a major personal milestone, making permanent a commitment the couple had already embraced through fostering. They have kept the adopted children’s names and ages private.
For any driver, the thought of family members watching a serious crash without confirmation of their safety is difficult. In Logano’s case, the incident came immediately after the couple had shared such significant news about their growing family. While he praised the safety crew’s response, his frustration over the communication gap was understandable.
Logano’s escape brought immediate relief to the crowd, his team, and his family. The rollover was a stark reminder of the dangers of superspeedway racing, but the car’s protective structure and NASCAR’s safety crew helped him walk away. Sore but uninjured, he left Talladega with a renewed appreciation for the people who helped him through the crash.