Morgan Shepherd was put in hot waters when his No. 33 Circle Sport Chevrolet made contact with No. 22 of Joey Logano last Sunday during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The accident caused Logano to end his race placing him on the 40th slot. Shepherd on the other hand finished 39th.
Logano was running second during that time while Logano was multiple lapses down. The accident didn't damage much of Logano car and he continued on while Logano car was straight to the garage.
According to Shepherd "It's one of those deals where my car wasn't driving real good. Whenever he drove down in the corner, he was close to me and it just pulled my car around. Nobody's fault." He added "Maybe he didn't realize how wicked loose I was; I was having to tiptoe through the corner."
Logano, on the other hand, was upset over the situation saying that the incident that happened was dumb and that "I feel like that should be stuff that shouldn't happen at this level of racing." It can be noted that Shepherd is already 72 years old.
But Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition and racing development, did not see an issue with Shepherds age saying "Morgan Shepherd has always been approved; he's been approved for decades. Under our situation here, you take a physical at the beginning of the year, you pass your physical, you pass inspection with your car, you qualify for the race and you run the event. He met everything he needed to meet."
Pemberton understands where Logano is coming from saying "Nobody wants to be out of the race because of an accident. (Shepherd) was above minimum speed; he pulled over to let Joey go by and it's a responsibility for all competitors to lay off each other," he said. "It's an accident, those things happen. It could have happened to anybody with any competitor."
Shepherd has competed in NASCAR's premier series in five different decades with four victories in the Cup series. It was a just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Too bad it caused Logano the race.
