Joey Logano says he has reached an impasse with Ty Gibbs.
The veteran and youngster had another series of run-ins over the weekend during the Busch Clash at the Coliseum. It was the continuation of an emerging rivalry from last season that culminated with an incident in the penultimate race at Martinsville.
On Saturday, there were two more incidents, including one on a restart with 10 laps to go when Gibbs drifted up into Logano while both were on the front row and opened the door for Denny Hamlin to win the race at their expense.
Logano confronted Gibbs after the race, where they had an animated conversation on the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 lift gate, that ultimately ended with no resolution.
“He’s just mad that I ran him up,” Gibbs told reporters afterwards. “If you go back and look at the replay the 12 (Ryan Blaney) kind of chucks him out of the way too. It’s a hard race at the end. This place is really hard to get your tires warm once the caution comes out as we all see everybody sliding around.
“I just got in there deep … and then we just all kind of got tangled up after that. (Logano) just came to me and said that to me in a bunch of different words.”
The start of the season also means the return of the weekly Logano show on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio where he expressed his wits end with Gibbs on Tuesday morning.
“Here’s the story,” Logano said. “Ty and I have raced pretty hard with each other since last year, and we’ve tried to have a talk to where ‘okay, we’re going to start at zero.’ Then three weeks in a row where he was completely using me up.
“I had enough, right? You can only poke the bear so many times before the bear bites. I had enough at Martinsville, so I showed him I had enough.”
Logano spun Gibbs in Turn 3 at Martinsville, which led to the first overture from Gibbs, something Hamlin said he encouraged after talking to both drivers after that weekend.
“He called me afterwards, which I respected that,” Logano said. “We had a conversation, came to my place, and we talked for about 30 minutes. I thought, ‘Man, that was pretty cool. He was very humble. We had a good conversation about it.
“I thought I’ve been through a lot of this stuff before when I was like him, right? I can see a lot of myself in Ty. I get a lot of it. I thought, ‘Man, if I talked to Kevin (Harvick) that way or I talked to Tony (Stewart) in that way, gosh that would have been great, like to have had that.’
“So, I was open … I’ve been through this before. Let me see if I can help the situation out. So we left and we shook hands and ‘okay, here is how we’re going to do it, we’re going to respect each other on the racetrack, we’re going to respect each other.
“And only for the first opportunity for us to race each other since that conversation to get completely used up on the restart. I get it, 10 laps to go in the Clash and we’re going to be aggressive with each other, but to completely use me up into the fence, not going to be okay with me.
“So, obviously, I’m mad about that. At that point, I wanted to make sure he knew that I was pretty upset about that and that’s not acceptable.
“Now, where do we go from here? I don’t know. I don’t know. We had a conversation. He said all the right things. His words don’t mean nothing to me anymore, so I’m not going to talk to him. But I don’t really know the next to do. … I’m at a loss at this point.”
Gibbs is the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, but also a young driver (21) that has won at every level and is inching closer to winning at the Cup Series level. Logano also sees a little of himself in Gibbs as he spent his own formative years at Joe Gibbs Racing.
“The kid’s talented,” Logano said. “He’s fast. I’m going to have to race to the end of my career. He’s not getting fired. I know that. He’s good. I don’t know how to handle it from here. I mean, we can get into a back-and-forth match. I don’t really want to do that, but I’m open to do it. But I don’t know what the next step is to earn respect of the kid.”
Hamlin saw all of this happen in front of him, and has taken a mentor role for Gibbs, and is also a former teammate to Logano, who has also had ups and downs with two-time champion.
“Absolutely inadvertent mistake on Ty’s part,” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast this week. “When I say mistake- he tried to turn, he tried to hold it low. I did see Joey crowd him. […] He didn’t leave the young guy very much room for error in my opinion.”
It was also for the win.
“I think Ty has a legitimate argument and upon talking to Joey about this a little bit, I was kind of the middle man, listening to his side and Ty’s side,” Hamlin said.
And while this was an exhibition race, Logano says the stakes were real and its part of a much larger yearlong issue between the two.
“To me, it’s not about an exhibition race or the Daytona 500 or a points race, whatever it is,” Logano said on SiriusXM. “That stuff carries from race to race. It’s the same people. There’s a fair amount of money sitting out there to win for your team. There’s a big old trophy and there’s a cool stat saying you won the Clash. All that is still there. I don’t think anybody races any differently considering what kind of race it is. It seems like everyone just kind of brings their same self to every race these days.”
So, what now?
“I don’t know the answer right now,” Logano said. “I’ve thought about a lot of it. I want to work it out. I’m being clear. I don’t want to be in a pissing match with this guy. But I’m also not going to get pushed around.
“I’m sure he’s saying the same thing, he’s not getting pushed around, but he’s doing the pushing right now. And eventually, you get bit back. It’s how our sport works. It’s self-policing. It’s an eye for an eye. That’s how it works.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.