Opponents’ crash benefits Kobyluck

Matt Kobyluck won his second NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown on Saturday night in a wild finish when front-runners Joey Logano and Peyton Sellers crashed on the final lap.

All three were vying for the win at the half-mile Toyota Speedway at Irwindale when Logano and Sellers, running side by side, collided. Logano crossed the line first but was penalized by NASCAR for aggressive driving, giving the win to Kobyluck, who also won the race in 2006.

Logano, 18, won the prior Showdown and Sellers was second, and this time a frustrated Sellers climbed from his wrecked car and had words with Logano after the race.

Trevor Bayne finished second and Jason Bowles of Ontario was third.

The Showdown is a showcase mostly for the nation’s top drivers in NASCAR’s minor league series and considered perhaps the nation’s most prestigious short-track stock car race.

Logano this season graduated to NASCAR’s premier Sprint Cup Series and will drive the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing that was vacated by two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart.

But Logano first returned to Irwindale to defend his first Showdown win.

Logano started 10th in the 40-car field and had moved up to sixth when, on Lap 84, he briefly lost control and brushed the outside wall in Turn 4.

That dropped his Toyota to ninth.

He worked his way back and finally reached the lead when two other front-runners, San Diego’s Brian Ickler and three-time NASCAR truck champion Ron Hornaday Jr., triggered a multi-car crash on Lap 143 that forced the race to be stopped to clear the track.

Among the other drivers collected in the wreck was Ricky Carmichael, the motocross legend now pursuing a career in stock car racing, who had started 28th.

Earlier, another multi-car wreck in Turn 2 claimed Chris Johnson of Claremont, who started his Ford on the pole but fell from contention. It was one of more than a dozen caution periods in the race.

Eric Holmes, an Escalon, Calif., driver who won last year’s NASCAR Camping World Series West championship, was running third after 100 laps but suffered a broken sway bar, dropping him to the middle of the field.

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james.peltz@latimes.com