By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief
What a difference a year makes.
Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick finished 1-2 in last year’s edition of the Bank of America 500, but this year both drivers saw their day end early on Lap 155 of 334 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The No. 22 Team Penkse Ford of Joey Logano hit the Turn 1 wall on Lap 117 after a tire went down, a problem that plagued him again moments later, but the heavy impact forced him to go to the garage for repairs.
“I don’t know (what the issue was),” Logano said. “Tires are popping. We’re not the only car that had the issue, but we’re the ones that hit the wall when it happened, so that’s not the best place to have them go down.
“We had a fast car. Our car was capable of winning the race. We drove up from 10th and were up to third and running down the leaders, so I felt really good about what we had. I don’t know. Things happen. It’s part of racing, I guess.”
For Harvick, the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, the day started from the pole but quickly unraveled due to an unknown mechanical issue that hit the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet, with all signs pointing to a lack of oil pressure.
“It just suddenly shut off and the things that it points to are no oil pressure,” Harvick said.
“It’s definitely not a power issue with the battery or anything like that. They are trying to diagnosis it. I hate it for everybody on our Busch team they made some great adjustments today and got our car back where we needed to be to run up front and everything was going fine. Lots of things can go wrong and today they did.”
Logano and Harvick sit at the bottom of the 12 remaining championship contenders, six and eight points below the cutoff line with two races remaining before four drivers will be eliminated.
