Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion team had a dominant car late in the going on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway and looked to be on the way to his fourth-straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win, but was taken out in an accident while in the lead with less than 50 laps to go and had to settle for a 37th-place finish at the half-mile track. Logano started the race from the pole, his sixth of the season, and led early when the race initially went green following a green-yellow condition. All day long, Logano would be a top-five car and fought turn at the two-thirds of the corner and drive off the corner. As the track continued to rubber in following a morning full of rain, the Shell-Pennzoil Fusion continued to come to Logano. Even when he lost the lead on the track, the pit crew performed flawless stops and was able to get Logano to the lead on nearly every set of stops. Each time, Logano would race at the front of the field and showed to be one of the best cars on the track. All-in-all, Logano would lead on nine different occasions for a race-high 207 laps. Logano was able to jump out to the lead late in the race and was building a commanding lead when, with less than 50 laps remaining, the No. 20 of Matt Kenseth wrecked Logano as he was trying to put him another lap down. The damage to the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion was significant, but the team was able to make repairs and get the car back out on the track just before the checkered flag flew. The disappointing 37th-place finish drops Logano from the top spot in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings to eighth with just two races remaining before the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“It’s just unfortunate that our race had to end that way. I got wrecked. There isn’t much else to say about it. I don’t know what am I supposed to say about it. His (Kenseth’s) race was over and he tried hard to wreck us and he was successful the second time, so I give that to him. For us, we just needed to go back out there and try to salvage a point or two. We’ll go to Texas and try to win. We’re on a heckuva run. We were still leading this race and we were going to win it. We had a really, really fast Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion. We’re not gonna let this take us down. This is a strong team. We will get past this.”