Gibbs, 19, dominated much of the race but got nudged out of the way on the last lap by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Brandon Jones, who went on to win his first race of the season.
After being passed, Gibbs fell back into a three-wide battle with Sam Mayer and Landon Cassill as Gibbs and Mayer still had a chance to win the $100,000 Dash4Cash bonus. Mayer – in the middle – nudged Gibbs up the track and he ended up finishing eighth, finishing out of the money and the win.
After attempting to spin Mayer on the track on the cool-down lap, Gibbs went directly to confront Mayer on pit road and appeared to hit him in the chest as Mayer was removing his helmet.
The two had a brief conversation as Mayer tried to get Gibbs to remove his helmet, then the two traded shoves and Gibbs struck Mayer with at least three punches before officials separated the drivers.
NASCAR has been reviewing the incident and any penalties will be announced this week.
“Do I agree with the way it went down? No, I don’t,” Logano, 31, said. “Have I done that type of thing before? Yeah, I have. Am I proud of it? No, not at all. But I learned from it at least.”
Logano, who started racing in NASCAR national series competition at the age of 18, had his own share of issues with more veteran drivers as he drove up the ranks.
“I guess taking a deep breath and understanding the big picture and handling things correctly is probably the way to go. But we’ve all done dumb things,” he said. “It’s just as a driver, it’s just going to be out there in the open.
“Two younger guys, ambitious to win and I wouldn’t say what happened on the race track was wrong, but I’d say what happened after was probably not the right direction.”
Race the way you want to be raced
Just the week before, Gibbs had used a last lap “bump-and-run” move to pass teammate John Hunter Nemechek to win the Xfinity race at Richmond.
While Gibbs admitted after the race he “had one coming” for the move, Logano said the grandson of Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs should have expected others to race him the same way.
“I don’t know if he had to go straight to fists right off the bat, but for what it was, if you’re going to race a certain way, you got to expect to be raced that way back,” he said. “That’s the driver code that nobody can understand. That’s it. If you’re willing to push, then you’ve got to be willing to take some pushes.
“That’s what it comes down to. If you’re willing to push for a win, and someone is willing to push for $100,000 behind you, it’s one for the other at that point. That’s my opinion. Each one’s entitled to their own.”
