Todd Gordon, crew chief for Joey Logano on the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion, is one of four crew chiefs with a chance to win this year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway this Sunday. Gordon was a guest on this week’s national teleconference to talk about that possibility at Ford Championship Weekend.
TODD GORDON, Crew Chief – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY GOING INTO THE WEEKEND? “I think you have to approach this weekend like we did all of the races this year building up to this race and continue to race aggressively. With the way the format is kind of laid out this year you have to be aggressive to reap the rewards and I think you’re gonna have to be close to being a winner to take home a championship. We’re gonna continue to try to do the things that we’ve done – not break the format of how our practice flow has worked, how our week of preparation has worked. We had a really good test down there a couple of weeks back just before Texas and feel good about that and building off of it with coming back to Homestead.”
DID YOU EXPECT ALL OF THIS INTENSITY WITH THE NEW FORMAT? “When you first look at it, obviously until we’ve run through the whole format I don’t think you can totally expect what’s going to happen. I think when everybody looked at it we knew that it brought the intensity of the go or go-home race multiple times within the format and within the race season, so you knew there would be a heightened level of effort from every team and instead of just a slow and steady, it would have its peaks every three races. It’s definitely, I would say, lived up to the expectation, if not exceeded it with some of the things that we’ve seen here, but it’s the format that we’ve got and it’s been exciting. I’ll say that when we looked at it when it was first announced and even through the year we really thought you were gonna have to win one of these three races coming into Homestead – Martinsville, Texas, or Phoenix – in order to move on and you had to focus that way and it ended up being the polar opposite, it was a points race, so it changed up the whole last segment but the first two segments really lived up to what we thought and it’s proved that even if you anticipate the most, you won’t get what’s gonna happen until it happens.”
THE FACT YOU’VE HAD A GOOD SEASON AS WELL SO FAR HOW DOES THAT PLAY INTO THINGS? “I think we ended last year fairly strong. Joey coming over to the Shell/Pennzoil team was a good match. Everybody here buys in. We’re all on the same page and pushing together, and we had success the latter half of last year and Team Penske has done an awesome job of pulling resources — Paul Wolfe and myself working together, and Brad and Joey working together to make sure that we’re prepared for every week, and I think we’ve had success and not lost track with what makes us successful and make sure we include that every weekend.”
WHAT HAS PREPARED YOU FOR THIS WEEKEND? “It’s a new situation for everybody. The great part is you’re not behind and you’re not ahead, you’re on an even playing field and going forward. We kind of earmarked that we needed to win a race at Kansas or Charlotte. That put us forward and Charlotte has been a weaker race track for us, so we felt like Kansas was a place that we had to perform and as we needed to we did. This whole race team has responded well. I think when we’ve faced adversity the last two weeks we’ve recovered from it. We’ve found ways to not lose our cool and continue to race forward. I think that’s a statement of where this race team is and what they’re made of and how we’ll race forward in this race at Homestead. Is there a preparation that you can say definitely, ‘This is where we’re gonna be?’ No, but I think the makeup of the people within this race team everybody is together. We’ve come through some rocky roads and some rough situations and we’ve always figured out how to persevere and have success, so we’ll look to do that again this weekend.”
YOUR THOUGHTS ON HAVING THE 31 TEAM INVOLVED IN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP FOUR. “I think it proves that before we had this whole format laid out and played out, and everybody’s perception of what it was gonna take to make it to Homestead isn’t exactly true to what has to happen. If you look at their performance throughout the Chase, they haven’t dominated races but they’ve been a contender in several and continue to be a top-10 car. They find ways to make that happen and they’ve done an awesome job to get themselves in the position they’re at and we look forward to racing them on Sunday.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT JOEY’S EVOLUTION SINCE ARRIVING AT TEAM PENSKE? “I think the biggest thing is when Joey walked in here to start over, I think he walked in with confidence and knew what he needed in a race car and knew this was his opportunity and his race team and he’s owned that. I think through the last two years you’ve seen an evolution of that – there’s ownership and there’s confidence. As we were more competitive, right off the get-go I thought, we had a lot of speed and we competed for race wins. I think that just built into him believing that he had what it took to be very successful. He had that all along in the Nationwide Series over there at Gibbs, before he came over here, but I thought he was able to bring that confidence to the Cup level. That confidence is something that we believe in each other and this whole race team believes in Joey. When you’re a person, as a driver, that is surrounded by people that believe in you, I think you have to believe in yourself and it gives you a new level. And I think he’s matured as well. He’s 24 years old now and he’s been in the Cup Series for six years. He’s got a lot of bangs and bruises, but he understands the business and what it takes for us to be successful together. I think the communication side is phenomenal and his mental aptitude of dealing with stress and keeping a level head helps this whole race team and it’s done wonders for us.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED WITH HIS LEVEL OF MATURITY? “He’s well ahead of the curve for his age, but if you look at his history racing is all he’s done. He’s been doing this since he was nine years old and he’s been in a competitive environment the whole time. It’s not just having fun with it, he’s been competitive, so I think he understands. He’s driven to be successful. I think he has that ability to find the next level when he needs to, which is a talent that only few possess, and as he believes in that ability he’s very succinct and very clear on what he needs out of a race car and that communication piece helps us to be more successful and I can’t wait to see where the next few years take him because he is only 24 years old, but very mature for his age and very mature in the race car for understanding what’s got to happen.”
WERE YOU BEGINNING TO WONDER HOW THE TEAM WOULD REACT WHEN IT HAD ITS BACK AGAINST THE WALL AND WHAT DID YOU SEE WHEN YOU FELT LIKE THEY DID? “Yes, we had success but I think as you look at it the biggest thing that this team has done is this team has always believed in itself, and whether it be the mechanics, the car chief, the engineers or the pit crew, you’ve got to believe in yourself – or Joey to that matter – and you’ve got to understand that mistakes happen but you can’t dwell on them. We fought through adversity in the past. I think if you look back to last year we had circumstances where we had to battle back from adversity to find success, so the team has proved it in the past. We laid out a plan of what we felt we needed to do through every segment to get to Homestead and honestly the first two played out just as we thought. The third one was nothing like I thought it would be. I felt like we had to go to Martinsville or Texas and win, and I really felt that the people who won those two races were gonna be so far ahead because their preparation for Homestead could start once they won. With two non-Chase cars winning those two races it kind of changed up the whole composition of how you got to Homestead, but I’m proud of the way everybody here has responded to the adversity the last two weeks and identified what we could do differently to resolve those situations and move forward, and also trying to look at other things of what else can happen – the what-if factor. The guys have done an awesome job here and Team Penske has done a fabulous job of preparing us for that with all the support at the shop.”
JOEY IS THE YOUNGEST GUY AND HASN’T BEEN IN MANY OF THESE SITUATIONS. DO YOU THINK THAT COULD HURT HIM ON SUNDAY? “I think the opposite. It’s a new format for everybody. Everybody has their nicknames, but I think if you look at the performance that Joey is able to give on every restart that we see, if you look at what he’s able to do on the last run of every race and the ability to maximize points and positions. If you look at our average finish through the Chase it’s been exceptionally good and a lot of that is given to Joey and what he does on late restarts. He’s recovered great finishes out of average race cars a couple times throughout the Chase. I think his ability, yes, he’s young and he’s never been through this race, but I don’t think anybody has been through this race. There’s always a difference. Kevin was in a championship run last year, but he was 30-40 points behind. He was in a ‘all I’ve got to do is win.’ It’s a different thing because there are four cars that are tied, all equal in points, so it’s a different format and it’s one race to get it done. I think Joey has the mental maturity and has the ability to focus in when he needs to to be very successful in this format.”
