By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – “What do you want? Save fuel or crash?”
With one inquiry, Joey Logano summed up the current state of superspeedway racing in the NASCAR Cup Series in the wake of a 26-car crash in the second stage of Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
After an opening stage that saw fuel mileage being the main focus, it was hammer down to start the second stage and shortly after that stage began, all hell broke loose into Turn 3 when a bump from Ross Chastain sent Bubba Wallace around and it was pure chaos behind them with nearly the entire field getting a piece of the action.
“Got wrecked there, unfortunately,” said Wallace. “Our Xfinity Toyota Camry was a little unstable getting pushed, but manageable. Maybe that hard of a hit was too much, so unfortunately, we wiped out a bunch of cars.
“Got to debrief, got to be better. Just kind of riding around, not doing much in the first stage – nothing to show for it at Talladega. Unfortunate, it is a place we come to with a lot of confidence, and it is what it is. We will put this one behind us and go on to Texas and have some fun.”
While Wallace took the diplomatic approach, others weren’t so kind in the aftermath of the crash.
“It’s just unfortunate. That’s Talladega,” said Logano.
“You start pushing and shoving. We got to the point where we could start racing and not have to save fuel and we’ve proven with this car we can’t race each other without wrecking. We got maybe 10 or 12 laps of racing in before we wrecked. That’s about as far as I think we’ve ever gone.”
Chaos at Talladega. Here's what happened: pic.twitter.com/SWn6yMLaZp
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 26, 2026
Ryan Blaney, his teammate at Team Penske also caught up in the crash, chalked it up to the nature of the beast at these types of tracks.
“I don’t know. It’s not like there’s any blame on anybody. It’s what this thing is,” said Blaney. “We see each other. We all just kind of get bumping and banging and one guy eventually gets turned with the car being as unstable as it is. It definitely stinks to be out early.”
But Blaney also explained that there needs to be change with the way the Next Gen car races on the superspeedways, as the current product is simply unsustainable.
“Obviously, I would like a change to the race car. I feel like we can be better at these speedways with just how the car races and try to be not as all on top of each other and just running through each other,” Blaney added.
“I obviously have my hand up to wanting to make a change because we’re either fuel saving or we’re running all over each other just because that’s what this car is and that’s how you go forward. You’re just running through and it’s however hard you can push somebody. The cars are pretty unstable in the back. They get tank swapping or if you get ping-ponging they just can’t take it.
“Hopefully, I don’t really see it changing this year at all. I don’t think you can during the middle of the year. You could, but I feel like hopefully that Speedweeks deal in January we can try a lot of stuff out.”
Even Alex Bowman, who finished third on the day, explained the frustrations going from the fuel save heavy first stage to the chaos of the second and the aerodynamic issues with the Next Gen car that make things more difficult than they need to be.
“It’s kind of part of the game here a little bit, but even when you’re not saving fuel, it gets equally frustrating at times because aside from the beginning of Stage 2, the Next Gen car we’re just like gridlocked two by two,” said Bowman.
“Nobody can really do anything. You’re just pushing the leaders back and forth and it takes some big mistakes for things to shuffle or get going. So yeah, it’s just a very different style of speedway racing than what you see on Saturdays and still need a good car and need all the right things to be good at it.”
Like Blaney, Bowman added that it will likely take a fundamental change to the car to see any meaningful change at these tracks in the near future.
“I just think it takes a massive change with the race car, right? Fundamentally, I don’t know if that’s downforce or horsepower or drag or tire, I have no idea, but just I personally feel like the car is so draggy that you can have these big runs and you pull out of line and you just stop,” he said.
“You see the third lane, get up there and make hay for a minute and then they just die. So maybe get drag off of ’em and knock a beat out of ’em with horsepower. I don’t know. Obviously, they can’t just be like, oh, we’re going to take drag off today because then we’ll go 220 miles an hour, right? So, they’re in a box.
“I’m sure they’ll be really smart people trying to figure it out, or maybe they’re happy with it. I don’t know. I finished third, I’m not that mad about it, but it doesn’t sound like you guys are happy. So, I don’t know.”
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