When teammates clash under the brightest lights, how deep do the scars run? “Way to go, Austin, way to go, you dumb f—! Way to f——— go. What a stupid s—t. You just gave it to him. Gave a Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go. What a dumb—. Put that in the book again.” The question was put to the test inside Team Penske’s garage as Joey Logano channeled the message over the radio to fellow teammate Austin Cindric.
When the dust settled after Stage 2, Team Penske was confronted with an unavoidable controversy that played out live, sending shockwaves through the garage and fans alike. At Talladega Superspeedway, alliances are brittle, trust is fleeting, and even the strongest teams can be undone by one split-second decision.
Joey Logano snapped at Austin Cindric, a teammate, accusing him of treachery and raising suspicions about weaknesses in Roger Penske’s orderly squad. After the team opened their account for the season, everyone was interested in knowing how the team was going to deal with this situation. Michael Nelson, who serves as Penske’s NASCAR Operations president, shared his take on how the team deals with such incidents, ensuring that the team chemistry remains intact.
Team Penske to mend exposed cracks behind closed doors
“Well, I think our team has done a really good job of working together as a team over the years, especially at these races,” Nelson said. He pointed to the natural difficulty of maintaining unity at the superspeedway. When asked how long these frustrating moments last, Nelson leaned on an effective six-word response. “It’s just like a normal family.”
Penske has already encountered this difficulty, such as in the suspenseful 2021 Daytona 500 when Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano crashed while vying for the victory, wrecking both cars and denying the team a victory that was all but guaranteed. Superspeedway racing forces teammates to work together until the very last laps, when individual ambition and self-preservation take over. This dynamic not only doomed Penske’s 2021 Daytona attempt, but it also famously displayed healthy competitive spirit within the team.
“When you see that, you realize how difficult it is behind the scenes. These guys… they want to win the races, right? They want to win for their team. But at the end of the day, we have to go in and close the door when we’re not in front of everybody else and work through the issues that we have.” Nelson admitted. “Obviously, there’s some frustration there and heat of the heat-of-the-moment situation for sure, but I think we’ve done a better job than most,” he added.
Nelson’s remarks mirrored a tactic Penske has long employed: handle conflict in private rather than stoking a public fire. Logano and Ryan Blaney raced each other hard during last year’s championship race in Phoenix. But there was no rivalry or bad blood between them. The reason was that they knew the Penske way. “Blaney and I’ve been teammates for 10 years now, or whatever it’s been, and anytime we’ve had an issue, we handle it ourselves. We’ll just talk it out; we’ll figure it out.” Logano said this last year. The good news is that race winner Cindric didn’t stoke the fire as he shared his take on the incident.
“These are the types of things that when you’re expecting someone to have your best interest, those are the challenges, right? We have a lot of meetings centred around that. I feel like it requires constant maintenance. It’s not always pretty. The conversations aren’t always easy,” Austin Cindric said about the event post-race.
Bubba Wallace Keeps It Classy Amid Penske Fallout
Bubba Wallace had a superspeedway masterclass at Talladega while Team Penske suffered with internal strife. Just as Cindric checked up the lane, it allowed Wallace to thread the needle and score his second stage win of the season. The 23XI Racing driver would also go on to finish the race inside the top 10.“We didn’t need a new winner, but congrats to Austin (Cindric). All-in-all, our Leidos Toyota Camry was pretty solid today. It was nice not having to ride around, running half throttle and saving fuel. We did at times, but not as much. Clean race and now, onto Texas,” Wallace said.
After the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on April 27, 2025, Joey Logano and Ryan Preece were disqualified by NASCAR officials during post-race examinations. At first, Logano had placed fifth, while Preece had come in second. Nevertheless, both drivers lost their finishing places as the inspection revealed technical issues with the rear spoilers of their vehicles. To rub salt into the wounds of Logano, Wallace even aimed a jab at his rival on social media.
“Big AC fan in stage 2… don’t listen to the naysayers, you were perfect!,” Wallace wrote on X. This was directed at Logano, and how he won the stage. At the end of the day, Cindric and Wallace were the real winners. Whereas, the defending champ was humbled by NASCAR’s post-race inspection. It will be interesting to see how Logano bounces back from this setback.
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