Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Crown Royal Presents the Jeff Kyle 400 at The Brickyard Advance – Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Friday, July 24, 2015
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion, is looking for his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Logano held a press conference this morning to talk about NASCAR’s new rules package for this weekend, along with other topics.
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – YOU WON THE DAYTONA 500, WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO ADD THE BRICKYARD TO YOUR RESUME AND CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS TRACK TO ROGER PENSKE? “Anytime we hear Indy coming up we start getting the calls from Roger. We really want to win this race. This is the one on his bucket list that he hasn’t gotten yet and we talk about it a lot. It would be very special to give him a Brickyard 400, along with the Indy 500 he won earlier this year up here and the Daytona 500 we won earlier, too. So this could be quite the trifecta if we could make it happen. We’ve got a lot more practice the rest of today to try and tune in our Shell/Pennzoil Ford. We need a little bit of work right now, but the first few laps with this package there are a lot of unknowns, so we’re just trying to get the feel for where we’re at, what we need to make speed, try to understand what’s gonna happen when we get behind cars. I think that’s still an unknown. We’re just trying to get our car pretty decent to take off by itself and try to get some speed out of it that way, and then we can work on traffic and what’s gonna happen after that. But we want to win here really bad. This is such a special race to come up to. Anytime you get to race at Indy is a privilege to come up here and to get to drive a race car around this place. I can only imagine what that feeling would be like if you’re out there kissing the bricks on Sunday.”
DO YOU THROW THE NOTES FROM THE TIRE TEST EARLIER THIS YEAR OUT THE WINDOW BECAUSE OF THIS NEW PACKAGE AND HOW MUCH DIFFERENT IS IT FROM LAST YEAR? “I wouldn’t ever say you throw notes out the window. A lot of times you come back to them, but there’s a lot different. You look at the bumper extension and you look at the spoiler and obviously those are the two that stand out visually the most, but there are so many changes. When you change the amount of time you’re on the throttle, all of that just changes the setup so much of what works. I still think a fast race car is a fast race car and there are some things that still definitely transfer over. You look at front end settings and stuff like that. If you tested that at the test, I think a lot of that transfers over, but there is still quite a bit of difference. When you look at your wedge or your track bar or nose weight – those three things for sure, maybe rear springs – those changed probably the most when you have a package that’s so different than what they tested here or what we ran last year even. We’re just trying to find a balance for those three and those three are a challenge enough, but obviously there’s a lot more to that package than just that.”
HOW MUCH DIFFERENT IS DRIVING INDY FROM DAYTONA? “A lot different. Daytona, we’re wide-open all the way around. We’ve got restrictor plates on the cars. It’s a completely different package than what we’ve got here. Obviously, you would think we’re trying to add drafting with this high drag package, but we’re still making quite a bit more horsepower than we do at Daytona. We have to lift quite a bit more than we do at Daytona or Talladega – one of those type of race tracks – so it will be interesting to see how the race plays out for that reason. We’ll see. It’s so different. You can’t really compare the two because there are so many different pieces on the car.”
HOW IS VISIBILITY WITH THE HIGHER SPOILER? “It’s challenging to see. You have a small gap where the spoiler is clear and you can see out of that, and then obviously the wicker is on top of that, so it’s kind of hard. You only get a certain amount, but I think I can see about five car lengths behind me, and then any cars that are further back than that I can’t see. That isn’t the end of the world. If they’re five car lengths back, you’re probably not too worried about it anyway. When they get close is when you want to see it, but it is nice sometimes because we don’t know. We’ll see with this whole drafting package down the straightaway when that run is gonna start. If it’s starting from eight or nine car lengths back and you’re getting these huge runs off the corner, if someone is side-by-side or something like that, the run from nine car lengths back is gonna happen. It’s gonna be large. It will be kind of a challenge to see them that way, but as they get closer you’ll be able to see it. We all have pretty good spotters. I know my spotter is really good. I feel like we’ll be able to communicate where the runs are coming from and then as they get closer I should be able to see it in the mirror. You’re gonna have to block. You’re gonna have to make some big moves, especially on these restarts when cars are side-by-side off the corners.”
HOW SOON BEFORE YOU GUYS HOOK UP WITH TWO OR THREE CARS TO SEE HOW THESE CARS WILL REACT? “I think there’s been some guys who have gotten close to each other. I don’t know if I’d say they hooked up, but I know some guys have gotten close to each other. I drafted a car down the back straightaway as he was pulling in just to get closer and the amount of speed you gain as you get closer and closer to that car in front of you, and then I pulled out because he was pulling in – and when I pulled back into the air it was like putting the brakes on. It was like, ‘Whoa.’ The draft is huge. What that does in the corners is gonna be a different ballgame. Obviously, the hole in the air is larger, so driving the cars through the corners is gonna be more challenging, but the drag down the straightaway will that overcome what the challenge is in the corner? We’ll just have to wait and see. I think that’s gonna be an interesting part of the race. I don’t think we’ll ever see that in practice. You’ll have a general idea, but there’s not gonna be that many cars wad up in practice and try to go out there together and do all that. We’re not in Daytona. We’re not gonna have drafting practice. I don’t see that happening. I see maybe three or four cars trying it later on this afternoon, but I don’t see a whole pack going out there and playing around and doing like we do at superspeedways.”
DO YOU SEE PRACTICE GETTING RACIER LATER IN THE DAY? “I think some guys might just try to get a feel and see what happens, but right now if you want to make adjustments to your car on back-to-back changes and make sure you know what the change did, you’ve got to have a consistent piece of air basically in front of you. If you start getting cars in front of you, your car is gonna handle different, so then you’re not gonna know what your car did from one run to the other because it depends on how far back you are or whatever. So everyone is looking for clean air right now so they can see what the changes do to their car, so they can make the best decisions and the best adjustments going into Saturday’s qualifying and Sunday for the race. We’re all just looking for consistent runs from run to run to make sure we know what our changes are doing right now.”
CAN YOU LOOK AHEAD TO POCONO NEXT WEEK? THE BUMPS HAVE BEEN FIXED. “I’m looking forward to the bumps not being there because that was our worst corner. With the bumps gone, I think we were actually really good and one of the best cars in one and three, but I felt like a 20th-place car in turn two. I think that’s a good thing to get it all smoothed out. It was a jump. It was crazy. You look at pictures when we went through the corners and you look at pictures where the front tires were literally off the ground, so that’s not OK. I’m glad they fixed it. I think it will help us and I look forward to going to Pocono. That’s always been a good race track for me in the past few years, so I look forward to going back.”
JEFF GORDON WILL BECOME NASCAR’S NEW IRONMAN FOR CONSECUTIVE STARTS AT LOUDON IN SEPTEMBER. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT AS A YOUNG DRIVER? “I’ve got a long ways to go (laughing). That’s pretty cool. I remember watching him when I was six years old at Loudon, watching my first Cup race there and he won. It’s amazing. He’s been racing forever and obviously for a six-year-old kid that’s forever to me at least, so it’s pretty cool to be out there racing against one of the best. That’s a cool milestone. I didn’t know that was coming, so it’s pretty neat. I’m sure he’s got plenty of records as it is, but I’m sure it’s cool adding another record anytime you can.”
WHAT ABOUT CHEVROLET BEING SO STRONG HERE? “I didn’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about Fords dominating here this weekend. That’s what I want to do. Obviously, they’ve been fast here. They have great teams and teams that have great drivers on them. This has been a race track that their package lines up for them. They make good horsepower. It’s a horsepower race track. We’re on the gas a lot, and this week isn’t gonna be any different, it’s gonna be actually more. We’re gonna be on the gas even more than we ever have been around this race track, so I don’t see it changing this week that they won’t be a threat. Obviously, they’re going to be a threat. They are every week, but I think we’ll be in the hunt. I think we’ll have a good shot to race against these guys and we’ve just got to keep working on our car right now. We’re off a little bit right now. We need to get our car handling better, which I feel confident Todd will fix it up for me and we’ll have something by the time Sunday comes around, but they’re gonna be tough like they always are. When you have teams that are that good and drivers that are that good, they’re always gonna be a threat.”
CAN YOU ELABORATE ON HOW ROGER LETS IT BE KNOWN THE IMPORTANCE HE PUTS ON THIS RACE? DOES HE DANGLE ANY KIND OF INCENTIVE? “I don’t think you really need any more incentive besides giving Roger Penske another win at Indy. You want to add your name to the list of guys that have won here for him. Every time I walk into the shop the first thing you see is all these Indy 500 trophies and the helmets that they wore when they won that race and the picture. It’s really cool, and obviously it’s a different kind of car, but it would be really cool to give him his first win in the Sprint Cup Series at this race track. How neat is that? I don’t really need the extra incentive for that. That’s incentive enough for me to go out there and want to make this happen, and that trickles down throughout the whole company. We all want to come up here and give our best effort and try to execute the race the best we know how to and build the fastest cars we know how to before we get here, but we do that every week. We do that for every single race track, but there’s just a little bit added for this one. It’s like going down to Daytona – you really want to win the Daytona 500 because it’s one of the biggest races of the year. This is the same story, but it’s even a little bit more special for I think Team Penske than it is for even everyone else.”
IS THERE A POINT IN THE CALENDAR WHERE HE POINTS TO AND SAYS, ‘THE BRICKYARD IS COMING?’ “He doesn’t have to. We feel it without him saying it, believe me, and we talk about it. When this rule package came out he didn’t have to come to us and say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have to develop this thing as quick as we can.’ We were already doing that. We know how important it is to him and how bad he wants to win this thing, so not a surprise to us that he wants to do it and he’s not pressuring us more – he doesn’t really have to – he’s made it known over the last few years how badly he wants to win this race and that hasn’t changed.”
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN THIS RACE AND THE DAYTONA 500 IN THE SAME SEASON? “That’s something you talk about forever. Wasn’t Jamie the last one to do it? I think he won the Coke 600 too that year. I think he won all there. That’s pretty amazing. I remember watching that and I was racing against him then and it was spectacular to do that. We missed the Coca-Cola 600, but we’ve got a shot this weekend. I look at Indy and Daytona as the two biggest races of the year as far as the prestige and the history behind the races. Now we put Homestead in that as the most important race, hopefully, but for everybody Indy is just a special place to come to. Every time you drive in this place you’re like, ‘This is cool. This is Indy.’ This morning I was walking from the trailer to the garage and you walk under and you see the race track and all that and you see Gasoline Alley and it’s like, ‘This is pretty cool. It’s kind of bad ass that we’re even here.’ I still get those chills that it’s neat and it’s fun to be here, so winning obviously would be very special and if we’re able to do the 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same year it would be really cool.”
HAS THIS PACKAGE CHANGED THE CHALLENGE THIS TRACK PRESENTS? “It’s Indy. Right now, we haven’t seen anything different because we’re not out there in a pack and seeing what’s going on out there. But it’s Indy. It’s always a tough place. It’s always one of those places that strategy is gonna come into play. That always happens here and I think no matter package you put on it strategy and the way you play out this race will always be interesting because it plays out like Pocono does – you can pit and not go down a lap, so that always jumbles it up. Seeing here in the past that two tires, no tires, we’ve seen that jumble up the field a lot. Last year, there was a competition caution and that really jumbled up the field. There are just so many things that just kind of mixes everything up as far as the strategy of the race that makes this very challenging. As a driver, it’s all about restarts. You’ve got to be on your game and you’ve got to make sure your car is good for that and this year we all obviously have track bar adjusters, so what we can do to adjust our cars to make ourselves better for restarts compared to where we are on long runs. That’s gonna come into play a lot and when we’re in dirty air and clean air and all that, so that adjustment will be pretty big to make sure you’re up on that.”
HOW DOES THE GEARING IMPACT RESTARTS? “I think all of us always want more gear. As a race car driver you want more gear because that just gives you more power, more get-up-and-go off the corner, so we’re always like, ‘More gear. More gear.’ Engine guys may be the opposite because that’s just winding their stuff up tighter and putting more things on the edge, so I think there’s a sweet spot that all of us know we want to get to, so it sounds like we’ll make some changes here and just try to hone in on that, but I think gear is a good thing. I think gear adds better racing. The more throttle response you get off the corners, the more you have a chance of passing somebody or someone making a mistake in front of you or something like that. It just promotes passing, so I think we always push in that direction.”
WERE YOU EXPECTING A ONE SECOND FALLOFF AND WILL THAT HAVE AN EFFECT ON SUNDAY? “There will be falloff because when straightaways are this long, you lose maybe a tenth off the corner so you compound that two or three tenths by the time you get to the end of the other straightaway. It’s one of those places where you can say, ‘I can find a half-second pretty quick.’ There are four turns here. There are actually four turns. I know we just say there are four turns at all these other places. I don’t know why we do that, but there are actually four turns here and there are more areas to gain or lose time. I think when you look at it and you say, ‘You’re a half-second off’ or something like that, it’s not as far off as it typically is because you can make a little change and have more areas to gain on that.”
WHO WAS THE PERSON EARLY ON THAT PROPELLED YOU ON THIS PATH YOU’RE ON? “There are a lot of people that helped me along throughout different stages of my career. I always remember when I first started racing Cup and I was getting my butt kicked consistently having Mike McLaughlin with me that kind of helped me get along, helped me know what I needed as a driver and try to figure out that stuff. We’d watch races together and try to critique what other people are doing and try to put that into my style and trying different things and looking at different lines. We went everywhere together. We did it all and just kind of helped me communicate to my crew chief and it was all kind of a partnership there that helped me a lot in the beginning part of my career. But there have been so many people that have helped me. That’s what you need. I’ve been taught just to take everything in and take in all the data I can get and then make what I feel is the best decision from there, which is obviously hard, but if it was easy everyone would do this. But I think as far as just being able to watch and study and be a student of the sport and trying to learn from other people’s mistakes can kind of help you move along and I had a few people to help me do that.”
