“Having a couple wins this early in the season and in two completely different racetracks make you very confident for the rest of the season. At this point we really have nothing to lose, it’s all about going for wins and having fun out there and making sure we’re ready for when the Chase starts.” – Joey Logano, post-race at Richmond International Raceway
On Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway, Joey Logano picked up his second win of the season – therefore locking him in the Chase. Given that he’ll stay in the top 30 in points, Logano can now use the rest of the regular season as a test session and go for as many wins as possible. Life is good for JLo, eh?
Entering his second season at Team Penske, Logano seems to be truly finding his groove as he is runs upfront on a weekly basis and has shown speed that wasn’t there in the past when he was at Joe Gibbs Racing. Whether he finally has grown as a driver and taken his lessons, or whether it’s just due to fast cars, Logano has to be considered an early championship favourite.
On Saturday night, Logano raced smart and hard all race, keeping himself up front. The driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford also knew what he had to do to win, given the circumstances on Saturday night.
“The long run before the last couple cautions there, we started losing our track position,” Logano said. “I was like, man, I really need to hold off these guys the best I can because it’s going to be my only shot when the late-race caution comes out because I was really thinking there was going to be another one really because I felt like the tire — someone was going to blow one out before the end of the race and there would be a caution for that reason, and that’s what happened.”
Restart near the front on the final caution, Logano was able to chase down Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Jeff Gordon as they battled for the lead.
” The 2 (Keselowski) car was really fast up top and he was really good on restarts all night, and the 20 (Kenseth) realized it, and the 20 was blocking him,” Logano said. “Eventually the seas parted because I got all air on the nose while they were up there racing each other and I was able to get underneath and pass them both in one shot, so it worked out pretty good for me.”
Logano’s victory shows how much growth he has experienced as a driver as last year, Logano was struggled at Richmond and also barely fought his way into the Chase.
“I think you’ve got a notebook now, and I think Todd (Gordon) really understands what I need in a race car and what we’ve got to do and what we need to go fast,” Logano commented. ” To come back a year later, or not even a year, six months later, and you’re up here battling for wins and you get a win, I feel like we’ve got to know each other, we know what each other likes and what we need in a race car, and our team is just building off of that, and obviously Team Penske is putting together great race cars, and we’re capitalizing on it.”
