Box Score Info:
RACE: OneMain Financial 200
TRACK: Dover International Speedway
DRIVER: Joey Logano
CAR: No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota
START: 3rd
FINISH: 1st (16th-career NASCAR Nationwide Series win)
LAPS: 200/200 (running)
LAPS LED: 184
Post Race Highlights:
· Joey Logano qualified the No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota in the third position for Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Dover International Speedway
· When the race began, Logano fell into third position. On the second-lap, Logano moved past his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Darrell Wallace Jr. to grab the second position. On lap 14, Logano took the lead for the first time.
· Logano told crew chief Adam Stevens the car was not handling that well and was both tight and loose. However, the No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota was able to stay at the front before the race’s first caution at lap 45.
· Following the pit stop, Logano came out of the pits second after another car took just two tires. It would be the last time all afternoon long that the No. 18 would not be at the top of the leaderboard.
· When the green flag flew following the pit stop, it took Logano no time at all to grab the top spot once again. When he got out front, Logano set sail.
· Even though the car was still not handling all that well, the No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota was able to stay out front. Even though two more pit stops, the team was able to keep Logano in the top spot with lightning fast pit stops.
· Logano continued to stay out front until lap 178 when the final caution of the day came out, bunching the field back up. While some of the lead-lap cars came into the pits, Stevens told Logano to stay on the track.
· When the green waved, Logano was able to pull away from the field and took the checkers, completing the season-sweep at Dover International Speedway.
· The win was Logano’s seventh victory of the 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series season. Those seven wins have come in just 17 starts, which results in an amazing 41% winning percentage.
· En route to the win, Logano led a career-high 184 of 200 laps. Despite running in only 17 of the 28 races thus far this season, Logano has now led more laps than any other driver in the Nationwide Series this year.
· Logano led a total of 338 of 400 laps at Dover in the NASCAR Nationwide Series this season.
· The win was Logano’s 16th-career NASCAR Nationwide Series victory. Logano has now won six of his seven races this season driving the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Logano moves into 16th on the all-time NASCAR Nationwide Series wins list.
· The win was crew chief Adam Stevens’ ninth-career Nationwide Series victory.
· The No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota extended its lead in the NASCAR Nationwide Series Owner’s point standings. The No. 18 team now has a 21-point advantage over the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing machine and a 30-point lead over the No. 6 of Roush-Fenway Racing
Logano’s Post-Race Thoughts:
“That might have been one of the most dominant cars I’ve never had on the track. And the funny thing is, the whole race I kept complaining about the car and didn’t think it was driving that well. I kept telling Adam that we needed to make this better and it wasn’t good here and was lacking there. But when you look at the results and you see that we led all but 16 laps, I guess there isn’t much to complain about. 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.
“I don’t know what to say about Adam Stevens. He’s amazing. He’s given me some great race racecars this year and its shown by winning seven of these things. I really can’t thank him enough. This is the second time we came here this year with a dominant race car. The both of us just know what it takes to get a car to go fast here. And Adam has one heck of a notebook. In fact after the race, I was joking with him that he better keep that thing under lock and key. That is a pretty valuable notebook. We knew which direction the track was going to go and this time we did a good job in practice of tuning for it in for the race. It’s fun driving great race cars.
“It was also a lot of fun to get Sport Clips a win. This is their last race of the year for them and they had a big group here today. It’s always great to win when there are a lot of sporsor guests at the track. There is nothing more exciting to them than getting to go to Victory Lane. And to have seven wins this year? That is pretty impressive. It’s just been a dream season. And we still have five more races to go this year.
