Joey Logano found himself on the defensive Sunday after several drivers were upset with him for rough racing at Sonoma.
Logano apologized to Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. after a pair of incidents in which Logano got into the corner too hot and lost control of his car.
"Hopefully they both understand," Logano said of the accident where he took out his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates in Turn 11. "It was my bad. I take 100 percent blame."
Comments from Busch (finished 17th) and Truex (22nd) did not appear on Toyota's post-race transcript, but Hamlin told SBNation.com he was willing to forgive his teammate despite being frustrated. Logano visited Hamlin's hauler for a chat after finishing 10th.
"He really overshot the corner and got into us," said Hamlin, who finished 35th. "Once you overshoot it, there's nothing you can do at that point. You either fence it yourself or run into the guy in front of you. We were just the person he was in front of.
"Once you drive that extra 50 feet in, there's nothing you can to do take it back. We were the bowling pins and he was the bowling ball."
In the JGR incident, Logano said he was trying to block AJ Allmendinger by using the inside line all the way into the corner. But that meant he needed some more room to make the turn, and his car started wheel-hopping because so much momentum was being carried as he tried to slow down.
"When you start wheel-hopping these things, it's really hard to get 'em back under control," Logano said. "You know, I was sideways trying to avoid Denny, hopefully missing him. But I just clipped him and sent him around. It's a bummer. You don't want to take anyone out, and you want to race clean and race hard."
Hamlin (who also had a part failure on his car) said it was easier to forgive a teammate because it's the "cardinal rule in racing" to not wreck cars from the same organization.
"You know when you're around your teammates, you typically try to not make mistakes," said Hamlin, who was catching eventual runnerup Tony Stewart before the spin. "When you're around your teammates, you try to be a little more cautious."
Logano also apologized for the incident with Truex, saying it was the exact same situation as when he accidentally spun his teammates.
Ryan Truex, who was caught up in the emotion of watching his brother get wrecked after a hard-fought day, tweeted: "Joey Logano you are a tool!!!!!!!"
He later deleted that tweet and instead said:
It's easy to get frustrated when it's ur own brother out there and u know how hard he works just to get it taken away in one corner. Sorry.
— Ryan Truex (@Ryan_Truex) June 24, 2012