NASCAR drivers Joey Logano and Ty Gibbs engaged in a heated confrontation during Saturday night’s Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. The incident arose when Logano executed a maneuver to pass Gibbs, who had been leading for 84 laps but subsequently spun out and struggled to regain a top position. Logano finished fourth, while Gibbs ended up in 18th place.
Tempers flared between Gibbs and Logano, with both drivers seen exchanging words at the Monster Energy trailer. Speaking to reporters later, Gibbs addressed the intense moment, attributing the clash to Logano being upset about how he was raced.
“He’s just mad that I ran him up,” Gibbs explained to FOX Sports. “If you go back and look at the replay, the 12 (Ryan Blaney) kind of chucks him out of the way too. It is just hard racing there at the end. This place is really hard to get your tires warm once the caution comes out – as you could see, everyone was sliding around. I just got in there deep and washed up into him. We just got all tangled up after that.”
Logano didn’t directly comment on the incident but spoke about the challenges of racing in the short track exhibition race. He mentioned that mistakes are part of the game, acknowledging the high-stakes environment at the Coliseum and the aggressive nature of competition.
An exchange of words after the race. pic.twitter.com/Gt3AFy0EER
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 4, 2024
“The racing is usually an eye for an eye more times than not, or trying to come out with some explanation of what happened,” Logano stated via Motorsport.com. “Mistakes are mistakes. Here obviously lends for a lot of things, and I’ve been on both ends of it. I got Kyle last year, so… it’s part of racing here, and you try not to because you know, yeah, there’s bigger races down the line, but sometimes you’re in a bad spot and you just make a mistake. That can happen, too. Or it’s just flat-out aggressive in doing that type of stuff. I don’t know.”
