NASCAR’s attempt to improve the channels of communication between crew chiefs, spotters, and race control allegedly led to a cuss-laden rant directed at Joey Logano being overheard by teams during Ryan Blaney’s win in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona.

Leading the way with just 13 laps remaining, Team Penske’s Logano appeared poised to secure his second Cup Series win of the season under the lights in Daytona, until disaster struck, with the 35-year-old spinning on the home straight. Despite his best efforts, Logano wound up getting his No. 22 Ford stuck in the grass, forcing NASCAR officials to put the race under caution. 

This seems to have frustrated NASCAR bosses, as revealed by Bubba Wallace’s 23XI Racing spotter, Freddie Kraft, on the ‘Door Bumper Clear‘ podcast. He explained that they now have access to “a new device that we use to scan race control for the spotters,” going on to say the audio “is clear as day,” adding that “It sounds like (race control’s) Jusan [Hamilton] is sitting next to you talking to you,” as per On3. 

“It’s great. The other officials don’t have it, like on the racetrack, whoever’s on pit road or some of the clean-up trucks, they don’t have the same thing, so it sounds like your normal radio. But like when it’s Jusan on the same system that you’re on, it sounds amazing.

“The problem with it is you can also hear; it’s so good that you can also hear some of the stuff that’s going on behind Jusan. And when Logano spun and he kind of drove back up onto the racetrack, you could hear some people in the background that were not very happy with him. And used some choice words I can’t repeat because we have sensors on these shows sometimes.”

Likely not the type of clarity NASCAR officials were hoping to achieve with the introduction of this new technology, Kraft went on to explain that the purpose behind the switch to this device came about out of a desire to make communicating the throwing of caution flags clearer, following issues with the NASCAR-issued radios.

“We’ve had issues hearing caution flags,” Kraft said. “I don’t know what it is, when they hit the button and they key up to say, ‘put it out,’ something gets overlapped where you don’t hear ‘put it out.’ So the yellow’s out and you don’t know it.

“So we’ve been trying to come up with something different to fix that and this is the next step in that process. But it’s clear as day and maybe it’s a little too clear.”

As for the caution in question, while frustrating for officials hoping for an uninterrupted end to the race, it was likely even more so for Logano, who wound up down in 27th. 

DON’T MISS…

“The car was loose and Erik’s (Jones) running hard, trying to make the Playoffs, and his run came at the wrong time and [he] tried pushing me as we flattened out and around I went,” Logano told reporters after the race, via Frontstretch.

He went on to say the timing of Jones’ push in the No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota was “a little bit soon,” going on to say, “He had tried doing that in the middle of the corner, so when I covered that, obviously that brought him close and he wasn’t going to lift and bail out of that. So, just hard racing at the end, I really can’t get too upset, kind of understand it, just sucks to be on that end of it.”

The final race of the regular season, both Logano and Brickyard 400 winner Wallace’s focus will now turn to Darlington Raceway for the Cook Out Southern 500 on Sunday for the Round of 16 opener. The same can’t be said for Jones, however, after he failed to win at Daytona, knocking him out of Playoff contention.