No. 20 GameStop Toyota News, Notes & Paint Scheme:
• STILL NO NEW CAR BLUES… NOT FOR LOGANO & NO. 20: The Dollar General 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with mark the fourth and final NASCAR Nationwide Series “new car” race of the 2010 season. The new car, which will be run in all of the events in 2011, has been good for the No. 20 team this year. Logano finished second and sixth with the new car at Daytona and Michigan respectively, and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin ran sixth at Richmond during one of Logano’s off weekends. The car is designed to be safer and more similar to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series current car. The car is also more economical for the teams and branded better for the fans.
• ROCKING OUT IN CHARLOTTE… WITH GUITAR HERO: The No. 20 GameStop Toyota will have a “rocking” paint scheme this weekend in Charlotte. The sixth installment of the ever-popular Guitar Hero series, named Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, will adorn the side of the No. 20 Toyota this weekend. Delivering the quintessential rock music collection that focuses on guitar shredding hits from bands such as Black Sabbath, Slipknot and Megadeth and larger-than-life band anthems from Queen, Muse and KISS, players can unleash more rewards and unlockable content than ever before in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock’s Quest Mode, the franchise’s first ever story-based mode, and Quickplay+, which invites challenge-starved fanatics to test their rock skills. Running on the powerful Guitar Hero engine that has been expanded and refined and with encores from the addictive, award-winning gameplay features that made Guitar Hero one of the most popular franchises of all-time – such as Party Play, Competitive modes and any combination of up to four instruments –the game offers a complete interactive and connected experience bringing friends and foes to the stage in the ultimate rock music experience.
• EVERYTHING YOU LEARN MAKES YOU STRONGER: The No. 20 GameStop team has been busy in the past few weeks testing at a number of different tracks in preparation for this weekend’s Dollar General 300 at Charlotte and the final Nationwide Series “new car” event. The team tested at the half-mile Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson, GA several weeks ago and then tested at the one-mile Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina late last week. Each time, the team tested several different setup packages under the new car to get a better idea of what makes the new cars faster. While the team didn’t test the exact chassis that they are taking to Charlotte (#20107, which also ran in Michigan), crew chief Kevin Kidd says the team learned a lot and has a better baseline to start.
• GET WELL “WAHOO”: It’s been a tough ride for recent Joe Gibbs Racing hire Charles “Wahoo” Sampson. Sampson, who took over for the No. 20 GameStop team as truck driver in Dover, worked for just a couple of weeks before being admitted to the hospital and having surgery this past weekend while the rest of the team traveled to California. Sampson is recovering at home and will be back at the shop and with the team as soon as possible. So the entire GameStop team wishes “Wahoo” a speedy recovery.
• STAT OF THE WEEK: 18. Joey has recorded an amazing 18 straight top-10 finishes this season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. In fact, his 18 races would rank Joey third on the all-time list of consecutive top-10 finishes in the Nationwide Series. However, since Joey has taken several races off in the middle of his streak, they will not count towards the record. Sam Ard holds the record for the most consecutive top-10 finishes with 42 straight.
• FEATURED ON THE No. 20: GameStop #2366 in Huntington Beach, CA will be the featured store on the lower rear quarter panel of the No. 20 GameStop Toyota this weekend in Charlotte.
Logano’s Season-To-Date NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats:
Starts Wins Top 5 Top 10 Poles Laps Led Earnings Avg. Start Avg. Finish
21 2 12 20 6 567 $800,450 5.0 5.0
Logano’s Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats:
Starts Wins Top 5 Top 10 Poles Laps Led Earnings Avg. Start Avg. Finish
62 8 30 50 13 1299 $2,397,429 7.5 7.2
Logano’s Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
Starts Wins Top 5 Top 10 Poles Laps Led Earnings Avg. Start Avg. Finish
4 0 2 2 0 59 $104,293 9.8 9.0
Joey Logano Quotes:
“Charlotte is always a different weekend all around. First, you are right here at home, so there are always a lot of friends and family that come out to the track. Also, this is just Charlotte and a place everyone wants to win. Charlotte is a tough place to race. The track seems like it would be just like so many other of the 1.5-milers that we run, but this place has a lot of different characteristics that you don’t see anywhere else and is really sensitive to the weather, so that makes Charlotte a challenging but fun place.
“I’m really anxious to run the new car here. Not only have we been testing the car and making grounds on what we need to do to make them faster, but Charlotte has been one of my better tracks in the Sprint Cup Series and since we’re running the new Nationwide car here, hopefully some of the experience will come over here. Charlotte is one of the few tracks I’d say my Sprint Cup finishes have been regularly better than my Nationwide finishes. So, I think we have a lot to gain this weekend and I’ve got a lot of confidence in my team.
“We’ve got Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock this weekend on the car and that is really cool. I’m a huge music fan. I listen to pretty much anything from rock to pop to country to classic rock. So having Guitar Hero on the car is really cool. I’ve looked at some of the songs that are on the new game and there is some really good music on there. And that game is for people like me; those who wanna have some fun, but aren’t very gifted when it comes to playing instruments.”
Kevin Kidd Quotes:
“We are coming into Charlotte with a lot of great expectations because we’ve had some successful tests with the new Nationwide Series car the last couple of weeks. We didn’t light the world on fire, but sometimes, that isn’t what you want in tests. You want to learn what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes, it’s just as good to learn some ideas that don’t work, because you don’t have to worry about going down that direction on race weekend. So, our tests were real successful, and I think we’ve got a better idea on what it is going to take to make our new Nationwide Series cars be as good or maybe better than our old-style cars.
“Charlotte is a very important race for us as an organization, as it is for everyone, because it is hometown for the team. Everyone wants to run good in Charlotte because you normally have a lot of extra people there that visit since the shop is just 20 minutes away. So we are going to do what we can to go out there and get this No. 20 GameStop Toyota back in Victory Lane. We want to win one of these new car races this year as an organization, and I think the No. 20 guys have a shot this weekend.”
No. 20 GameStop Toyota / Joe Gibbs Racing Team
Crew Chief – Kevin Kidd Car Chief – Tony Hamm Engine Builder – Mark Cronquist
Lead Engineer – Mike Lorusso Engine Specialist – Dan Bajek Spotter – Mark Robertson
Jackman – TJ Ford Front Tire Changer – Nick Krizmanich Front Tire Carrier – Aaron Shields
Gas Man – Chris Webb Rear Tire Changer – Chris McMullen Rear Tire Carrier – Matt Tyrell
Catch Can – Brian Larson Truck Driver – Charles Sampson & Ashley Brotherton
Tire Specialist – Ryan Martin Shock Specialist – Joel Weidman
