Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Camping World RV Sales 301 Cup Notes & Quotes (New Hampshire Motor Speedway)
Friday, July 12, 2013
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion, currently stands 15th in points heading into his home track weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Logano, who has enjoyed four top-10 Cup finishes, including a 2009 victory at the track, met with media members to announce plans for the Joey Logano Foundation and afterward discussed the weekend of racing ahead of him.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – THE WAY THINGS ARE SO TIGHT, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU WILL SEE GUYS MOVING IN AND OUT OF THE TOP-10 A LOT, DOES THAT CHANGE THE MENTALITY OF WHETHER YOU ARE LOOKING FOR WINS OR CONSISTENCY? “I think you need to be looking for consistency like you have been over the last 10-12 races that has gotten us from 20th in points up to 10th going into last week. We have to be able to keep that going. We are not at the point where we can risk it. I look at the way the 20 car won at Kentucky by staying out, that could have gone really bad for him but he was able to win the race. We aren’t in the position to go for those big moves like that to win a race that way. We have to win them the other way, actually being the fastest car. We are working on making our cars faster and consistently finishing in the top-5 or top-10 and get the points back that we lost last week. This team is more than capable of getting into this Chase. I think we have proved that and have gone through a lot of adversity this year and are still sitting in a spot to make this Chase. We need to be consistent. I want to get into the Chase, get some kind of cushion behind us and then you can do some risky pit calls to try to win a race. Now, as we get closer to Richmond, that plan can change. If you get too far out of this and you are sitting back in 18th in points, you might have to start doing that stuff to win the race. Right now, sitting 15th, I think we are 16 points out of the Chase. We can make up those points. We have to still be consistent and make the most out of every day, every race day that we have. That is the game plan as of now. Obviously after ever race we will take a step back, look at our situation and decide which way we will attack the race.”
IT SEEMS THE FORD’S ARE A LITTLE UNDER PERFORMING TO THE CHEVY’S AND TOYOTA’S. WHAT AREAS ARE YOU LOOKING IN THE MOST FOR IMPROVEMENT? “You name it. Chassis, aero, motor; those are the big things that are key to speed. You can get a balance pretty close throughout a weekend and if you don’t have the amount of speed then you have to look back and find where the speed gains come from. A lot of it is going to come from aero. I feel like our motors, we have made a big step on that and are getting better there. You are never where you need to be. You look at other manufacturers and they aren’t going to stop working either. We need to keep working hard and I don’t feel like we are as far behind as some of the stats may say. I feel like we are pretty good. We are not to the dominant stage where we are winning every weekend but like I said, we can consistently run a top-five every week and so we will look at some of our chassis stuff and try to improve our setup stuff and how we can make that better. It is always a constant thing at Penske Racing to always look at the aero side of things and on the engine side with Roush Yates I feel like Doug Yates has done a great job giving us what we have told him we needed and he is producing for us there. We just need to take everything and move it up a little at a time and then that speed will be there.”
HOW AWARE ARE YOU OF WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE 2 TEAM AND ARE YOU GUYS SHARING INFORMATION, WORKING TOGETHER, HAVE THEY BEEN A HELP TO YOU AT ALL THIS YEAR? HOW IS THAT GOING? “Of course. Brad has been a huge part of why I am here because we wanted to work together. We didn’t want to be teammates that didn’t talk to each other. We wanted to work together to improve each other’s race teams and each other as race car drivers. There has been a lot of communication back and forth. I assume you are asking about some of the struggles they are going through but they have had some speed in their car, just a lot of unfortunate things have come up over there. Yes, I am aware of what is going on but at the same time that teammate aspect of it doesn’t change. We are definitely able to work together and even had a meeting this week. We know we are going to be racing each other to get into the Chase. We both want to be in it and the only way we both can be in it is to work together. We have had that discussion already and we plan to keep doing what we are doing. That is the only way we will make it. If we start fighting against each other we are never going to make this Chase. We have to be together as a team and work together at Penske Racing and keep that going between Todd and Paul and Brad and myself. We will just keep the game plan going there.”
WHEN YOU GUYS ARE DECIDING ABOUT PIT GAMBLES, ETC. HOW INVOLVED ARE YOU IN THOSE DECISIONS? IS THAT ON TODD’S SHOULDERS OR PREDETERMINED? “I am as involved as I can be. We talk a lot about it coming up to a race and throughout the week on how we plan on attacking the race but I can’t come up with every situation and neither can Todd on how the race is going to play out, what place you are running and how fast the car is and what our chances of winning are. I feel like Todd is doing a good job of knowing when we need to risk it and when we need to take a solid finish. I feel like our chemistry has been there and we can only communicate so much during the race. I trust him on making the right call. I know what his motives are when we start the race and what he is thinking and I expect him to stay with the game plan which he has done a great job at this year.”
YOU MENTIONED RACING BRAD FOR A CHASE SPOT, WHERE IS THE LINE BETWEEN HELPING AND RACING EACH OTHER AS YOU GET CLOSER TOWARD THAT IF YOU ARE ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN? HOW DO YOU FEEL LIKE IT WILL WORK? “I feel like off the race track you need to work with each other as much as possible to make the two fastest race cars you can produce. On the race track you need to race each other clean and smart and help each other when you can but at the same time, he still is a competitor and we still will race each other but we will race each other like a respectable teammate would.”
ANY HOME TRACK ADVANTAGE FOR YOU THIS WEEKEND? “I didn’t grow up racing here so the home track advantage is not there and I don’t know if anyone in the sport grew up racing at a lot of these tracks except maybe Martinsville in late models or something. I have run a few East races, but as far as the home track advantage, this has been a hit or miss race track for me. I have either run decent or really struggled here. I came up here and we did the tire test and we left here and I didn’t feel like we were very good so we used one of our Penske tests here and we came up here and felt like we would make some ground up but still didn’t feel like we were where we needed to be. We went back to the shop again and we will unload here and see what we’ve got. We are trying to find something. This is a very difficult race track to make a car work. It is a very heavy stock car with a ton of horsepower that has to stop and turn and accelerate on a very flat race track with a very narrow groove. To try to get your car to do everything it needs to do is very difficult. There will be a few cars that can do it and they will stand out. There will be a lot of cars fighting the loose-in, tight-center, loose-off syndrome and those guys doing that the least will be fifth to 10th and the rest will be 10th on back. You need to break yourself into at least the fifth to 10th group and we want to be up there dominant and leading the race.”
LOOKING TO INDY, YOU HAD A DECENT RUN AT POCONO, THAT COMBINED WITH THE GEN 6 CAR, DOES THAT BODE WELL FOR YOU AT INDIANAPOLIS? “I feel like Pocono was decent and Michigan we had a really good car and led some laps there so I feel like those two tracks are fairly similar to Indy. Brad did a tire test there and he was very happy with it, so I feel like our bigger race track stuff has been good. California we were fast there too so our faster tracks I feel like Penske Racing has been better than the short track stuff. We are excited to go into Indy and it is one of our biggest stages that we go to and obviously a huge deal to win there. We are going to put our best efforts into it like we do every week and see how we do.”
