“This is bad optics”: Kenny Wallace makes eye-opening remark about Talladega wreck as Team Penske Cup champion’s ‘pick me up’ plea wasn't prioritized

Kenny Wallace has commented on the Team Penske driver's dismay in NASCAR's biggest modern-era wreck which transpired at the Talladega Superspeedway. The former NASCAR driver outlined the "bad optics," wherein Joey Logano called for help but the officials towed NASCAR's Most Popular driver, Chase Elliott before the former.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., a non-playoff driver, disappointed the championship hopefuls after clinching the YellaWood 500 victory. However, before snapping his 65-race winless streak, the JTG Daugherty driver survived the 28-car pileup that occurred with just five laps to go.

The massive pile-up prompted the officials to raise the red flag and several cars were towed back to the pit lane. This included Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, and Chase Briscoe, among other crash victims. However, Kenny Wallace highlighted that NASCAR towed the Hendrick Motorsports driver first despite the Team Penske's two-time Cup Series champion screaming, 'Pick me up! Get me going!'

The former NASCAR driver added that it's not a good look for the sport, giving the 'Mad Max' movie example to underline the drivers scrounging for the available resources. He said (via Dirty Mo Media on X).

"Now the car is sitting on the ground. Joey Logano's in-car camera, he's screaming, 'Pick me up! Get me going!' It's like a Mad Max movie, where there's only one gallon of gas left in the world and everybody's fighting over that...So the whole field wants to be towed in, and guess whose car they picked up pretty much first," Wallace said (0:09).

"The #9 (Chase Elliott)," the co-host said.

"The tow truck driver picks up Chase Elliott, our most popular driver. This is bad optics, and you know Elton (Sawyer- VP of Competition at NASCAR) is going, 'Oh my gosh! Could you please just picked up somebody else?' Wallace added (0:42).

Wallace nodded to the co-host's take that all tow trucks in the State of Alabama were insufficient for the number of cars damaged in Talladega's carnage.

"It's not his fault": Team Penske's Joey Logano opens up on Brad Keselowski's role in the wreck

On Lap 184, the fateful turnaround transpired after RFK Racing's Keselowski made contact with Team Penske's Austin Cindric. The domino effect of their collision destroyed several drivers' potentially promising results. However, it proved beneficial, to those who ran in the rear when the tragedy occurred and comfortably escaped it. Denny Hamlin was among the lucky ones who jumped 20 track positions in the chaotic exchange.

Joey Logano, however, couldn't escape and saw his race weekend go for a toss. The Team Penske driver started his run from sixth place but fell to a 17th-place finish in the first stage. He climbed for a P13 finish in Stage 2. However, he was running sixth and could've collected a top-5 finish had the pileup not happened.

Nonetheless, during the post-race interview, Logano sidelined Brad Keselowski as being at fault. He said (via Matt Weaver on X).

"It's not Brad's fault; it's not anybody's fault; it's just the product that the races got. And it was getting more and more aggressive as the laps wind down. And happens a lot. Glenda is where it's fun until it's not. I even have fun today. You can't even do anything here," Logano said (00:25).

Neither of the Team Penske drivers completed their Talladega race and Ryan Blaney is the only driver still above the playoff bubble.