TOYOTA NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS)
Post-Race Notes & Quotes
Dover International Speedway – September 29, 2012
Camry driver Joey Logano drove his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 SportClips Toyota Camry to victory lane in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) race at Delaware’s Dover International Speedway.
Logano led the field twice for 184 laps (of 200) en route to his second victory of the season at the one-mile oval. This is Logano’s seventh NNS win of 2012, and the 16th NNS victory of his career.
It marks the eighth NNS win for Toyota in 2012, and the 72nd win for Toyota since the manufacturer joined the series in 2007.
Camry driver Darrell Wallace Jr. earned his first career NNS pole in his first-ever series start at Dover. He finished 12th.
Camry drivers Kyle Busch (fifth) and Brian Scott (seventh) also earned top-10 results at Dover.
Other Toyota drivers in the field were Mike Bliss (11th), Ryan Truex (14th), Jeff Green (15th), Joe Nemechek (17th), Blake Koch (22nd), Eric McClure (26th), Michael McDowell (40th) and Charles Lewandoski (43rd).
JOEY LOGANO, No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 1st What does it mean to win at Dover? “I told Adam (Stevens, crew chief) that my monster trophy from last time was lonely and needed a friend — so I’m glad I was able to get one for him. This was the last race for SportClips for the year so I was happy to be able to get them another victory. Adam Stevens — I don’t know what to say. He’s amazing. He’s given me some great race pieces seven times this year. Can’t thank him enough — second time we came here this year with a dominant race car and leading a ton of laps.”
How are you and Adam Stevens able to dominate at Dover? “The both of us just know what it takes to get a car to go fast here and we’ve got one heck of a notebook. We know which direction the track is going to go and this time we did a good job in practice of tuning it in for the race. It’s tough with lapped traffic for sure and timing is everything. It’s all about looking about three laps in advance and it’s just a lot of fun. It’s fun driving great race cars.”
Is this the same car you won with in the spring? “Adam (Stevens, crew chief) has done a great job with this car — the same car we raced here in the spring. He was able to bring it back and it’s always usually harder to win the second one after everyone has more of a notebook. We were able to improve along with the rest of the field.”
How strong was Kasey Kahne? “There was a little cat and mouse play going on there for sure. Sometimes he (Kasey Kahne) would be fast and I would wonder if he was saving his stuff hoping there was a caution. Then we were both doing that kind of back and forth. It was definitely fun and definitely exciting. There were a lot of good cars that got up there towards the end and then a couple had issues unfortunately. The 18 is running for the owner’s championship so this definitely helps.”
Any reason why your lead would change from three seconds to one second during the race? “I felt like there were spurts in a run that were really good and then there were spurts where I just knew what I had to do to make sure I was good at the end of a run. I’d say everyone did get their cars better and I would say on the front side there were cars better than me. Then I just made sure I knew what I was doing in working each tire and trying to keep my car equal to go out there and make sure I had what I needed at the end of a run. Working through the traffic — I was just kind of being patient. There really wasn’t a need to be extra aggressive there when we were going through lapped traffic. We just kind of knew where we were and made the right adjustments. We just went hard enough that we knew what we had to do if we got in traffic and what was going to happen and I was able to stay out front.”
ADAM STEVENS, crew chief, No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Did you expect this type of performance? “We had a good car the last time we were here. I don’t know that you would necessarily look at the speed charts from practice in the first race and say, ‘These guys are going to dominate.’ We felt like we knew what we had and we knew which way the track was going to go and we played that to our strengths in the race last time. We unloaded this time pretty much the same that we raced and it just wasn’t good enough. We had a lot of work to do and we didn’t feel like the track was really representative until a certain point in time in practice and then we really started working on it and coming up with something that we thought was going to race well. That’s kind of our strength here and Joey’s (Logano) strength is he knows what he needs to race. When the driver knows what he needs, I’m not going to say it’s easy to give it to him, but you have a fighting chance. That’s just what we got here.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry, Kyle Busch Motorsports Finishing Position: 5th What did you struggle with today? “We had a few loose moments there today. Overall, the Monster Energy Camry was really good. I felt like track position was a huge deal here today. You could get to the outside and try to make ground, but you’re using your tires up so hard by doing that. If you do it for four or five laps, you better get back down on the bottom and cool your tires back down. Keeping up on the top side like that overheats your stuff and you just kind of fade from there. We tried it a few times but couldn’t make it work. Just kind of fought a little too loose all day.”
Can you apply anything from today to tomorrow’s Sprint Cup Series race? “You’ll definitely apply it for tomorrow. I think a lot of guys were kind of seeing what was going on today. That’s kind of been a product of Dover here lately with the way the rubber lays down on the race track it just seems like it lays so much rubber down that when you go lap after lap after a restart — we can bust off really, really fast times on a green race track when we pick up all the rubber. And then the more the rubber lays down, then when you start seeing speeds slow off and then they’ll taper to a point that everybody is running the same speed after that.”
BRIAN SCOTT, No. 11 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 7th
DARRELL WALLACE JR., No. 20 Freightliner Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 12th How was your first Nationwide Series race at Dover? “Every race we have a car better than where we finish. I’m the world’s worst on restarts. We were way too loose on the initial start and then on every restart I just couldn’t do anything — it would be really tight or really loose and shuffle way back. That’s the way it goes. I’ll figure it out someday. Hopefully, so we’ll maintain our spot and go forward instead of coming backwards and then going forward. A great day for all of us — we kept the car in one piece and we finished the race on the lead lap. But, bummed we broke our top-10 streak.”
MIKE BLISS, No. 19 Bandit Chippers Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports Finishing Position: 11th
RYAN TRUEX, No. 99 Seawatch International/Grime Boss Toyota Camry, RAB Racing w/Brack Maggard Finishing Position: 14th
JEFF GREEN, No. 44 G-Oil Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports Finishing Position: 15th
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM/FM Energy Wood Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Finishing Position: 17th
BLAKE KOCH, No. 24 Wings To Go Toyota Camry, SRT Motorsports Finishing Position: 22nd
ERIC McCLURE, No. 14 Hefty/Reynolds Wrap Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports Finishing Position: 26th
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 00 O.C.R. Gaz Bar Toyota Camry Finishing Position: 40th
CHARLES LEWANDOSKI, No. 10 Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports Finishing Position: 43rd
