Slow Pit Stop Spells Doom for Logano and Dollar General Team in Indy

Box Score Info:

RACE: Brickyard 400

TRACK: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

DRIVER: Joey Logano

CAR: No. 20 Dollar General Toyota

START: 3rd

FINISH: 33rd

LAPS: 144/160 (running)

LAPS LED: 0

POINTS POSITION: 17th (-1)

Post Race Highlights:

· Joey Logano qualified his No. 20 Dollar General Toyota in the third position for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was Logano’s best-career qualifying effort at Indianapolis.

· When the green flew, Logano held his own in the top-five before falling back to sixth, a position that he would commonly run in for most of the afternoon. Right away, Logano reported the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota was loose on entry and exit.

· Crew chief Jason Ratcliff brought Logano to the pits for the first time on lap 25 and tried to make the proper adjustments. When green-flag stops cycled through, Logano was still in sixth.

· Another round of stops saw Logano get out fourth and he ran as high as third during the run, but the loose condition persisted and Logano eventually, once again, found himself in sixth and making laps.

· The car continued to get better with Ratcliff’s adjustments all afternoon long. Eventually, Logano radioed in and said his car was the best it had been.

· On lap 95, the team came in for another stop under caution. This time however, the normally sure-handed Dollar General team had a slow stop while making an adjustment and Logano lost 15 positions, eventually restarting the race in the 21st position.

· With the car deeper in the field than it had been all afternoon, the Dollar General Toyota began to get very aero tight in dirty air. Logano fell back from 21st to 24th.

· The team played pit strategy to get Logano back up to 14th, but the dirty air continued to play havoc on the car and Logano again fell back to 21st.

· On lap 132, Logano was trying to pass the No. 21 of Trevor Bayne when the Dollar General Toyota got loose going into turn one. Logano got sideways and nearly had the car saved but got hit and pushed into the outside wall. The damage forced the team to take the car behind the wall.

· The team made repairs and got Logano back out on the track, salvaging a couple of positions and coming home with a 33rd place finish.

Logano’s Post-Race Thoughts:

“That was just unfortunate and not the kind of day we were looking for. We had a decent Dollar General Toyota. We weren’t a race-winning car, but I think if we had kept getting it better and better, we could have finished in the top-five for sure. We pretty much ran sixth all afternoon long and we were just riding, making the car better on each stop. On our fourth run of the day, we had the car the best it had been. We just needed one more little adjustment and we were going to make that on the next stop.

“My pit crew is normally spot on and they’ve been extremely fast all year long. But we had a slow stop and lost a lot of spots on pit road. That put us back in the big pack of cars and it completely changed the handle of the car. It went from being loose to being so tight you couldn’t even drive it. These cars are just too aero sensitive. When you get in dirty air, it completely changes the car. We had tightened it up and tightened it up and you get tight in dirty air, so it was so tight we just couldn’t do anything with it. After that, the day just went downhill. It was tough and I hate that we ended up wrecking the car. We were just trying to make it back to the front. It’s just a bad day. We just need to keep our heads up and go back to Pocono and try to get another win.”