Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
AAA 400 – Dover International Speedway
Friday, May 13, 2016
Joey Logano pilots the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion Sunday at Dover still searching for his first victory of the season and a spot in the 2016 Chase. Logano spoke about the season to date and how close the team is to accomplishing those feats Friday morning.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – WHAT CHALLENGES ARE THERE AT THIS TRACK AND HOW DOES THE NEW LOWER DOWNFORCE PACKAGE PLAY HERE? “I think there are a lot of unknowns coming into Dover this week with the new tire, possibly limited practice today depending on when the weather gets here. I think when you look at this low downforce package it has been better everywhere. I think we will really notice it here. In the past this has been a track that has been really hard to get to the right side of the car. I am thinking with the smaller spoiler on it the wake should be smaller and you should be able to widen the track out some. Anytime you take downforce off a car it takes grip off the car and the track widens out. I would assume that cars are going to be pretty high. Some of that is still an unknown but I would think the track is going to widen out quite a bit, especially in the Cup race when you have limited grip into the corner and are sliding around the car will kind of float up top and then try to get that big run off. There will still be cars running the bottom, and that may still be the fastest way, but I do think the track will open up and make for a better race.”
HOW DO YOU SEE THE NATURE OF THE ALL-STAR RACE CHANGING? “It is going to be crazy. The nature is going to be weird. I don’t know what changes you are talking about because it seems everything is changing for that race. We have race cars and the format is different. I am sure you guys in the media center will be plenty busy with plenty to write about because you don’t know what is going to happen. It is something that Todd (Gordon) and I and our engineers have talked a lot about how that race is going to play out and what we will have to do to our cars to get them to handle. I don’t know. I don’t really have a good answer for you because I don’t really know what is going to happen yet. The race is going to be very interesting to say the least. Seeing how guys play out that last segment of the race depending on where you are running and how they want to line up for that last 13 laps is going to be kind of crazy to see. I think you have to have a few different plans and kind of be ready for anything.”
IS THERE ANYTHING THAT HAS CHANGED FROM LAST YEAR THAT IS KEEPING YOU FROM DUPLICATING THE SUCCESS OF LAST SEASON? “No, we are still the same team. When I look at the last couple of weeks that is just racing. The way I look at things like that is, where were you running before that happened and how were you running in that race. I look at Talladega, we were up front and had a shot at winning that race if things went right. That was just part of speedway racing. Last week was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Did I feel we had a shot to win that race most of the race? No, I didn’t. Towards the end I felt we made really good gains on our car that it became a winning car I just had to get there. I felt like the move I made going into that corner to commit to the top was the right move and I would do it again tomorrow. It is just that things happen. It was the end of the race and everyone is racing hard. Nobody’s fault. I don’t blame anyone for racing hard. We should race hard. I love that people race hard. That is what this is all about. Unfortunately we started crashing and I couldn’t see anything and the next thing you know the front end of the car was killed. It was an unfortunate situation but it happens. It is racing. You can’t hold your head down about that. You have to move on. I feel like we want to break through and get our first win. We have some good race tracks coming up for us. I feel like all of them are good for us at this point. We want to break through and get that win but if you look at the consistency in our team it is still there. With the last two finishes you may not agree with that but the consistency of where we were running is there. It is not like we have had races where we have been way off and if we have started way off in a race we have been able to recover and get a top-10 out of it. I am so proud of the way our team executes races and races hard. We just haven’t really gotten the finishes the last few weeks to really show for that.”
DO YOU GUYS HAVE A REGULAR RAIN ROUTINE? “I don’t know if it is regular that there are things we typically to when we go to a track where there is going to be rain but that plan always kind of alters a bit depending on the weather. Qualifying isn’t looking too pretty with the forecast. Who knows? It could change. When that happens it goes to practice speeds and all of a sudden practice speed becomes a lot more important than what it typically is. A lot of times you make one or two qualifying runs but in this particular case today practice can become qualifying. You will not just see our car but about everyone spend most, if not all of practice, in qualifying trim trying to go as fast as they possibly can in practice.
DID YOU LOOK AT THE VIDEO FROM LAST WEEK AND QUESTION WHAT HAMLIN WAS THINKING WITH THAT BANZAI MOVE LAST WEEK? “I feel like I am one of the hardest races out there and I would be quite the hypocrite if I asked why he was racing so hard. If you ask me, that is what fans show up to the race track to see. They come to watch a race. They expect us to race. They don’t expect us to just say, ‘oh, go ahead’. They expect us to race and that is what they pay money to see. I am going to race hard. I know that. I have done that in the past and I will continue to do that. When Denny made that move I didn’t blame him. He made a run on the backstretch and had to do something with it. He got in a bad aero spot and both of them got loose. It happens. It is racing. I am not going to say, ‘Hey, why did you do that?’ We are racing and these things are hard to drive. We are going to make mistakes. There is a win on the line and it is a big deal, it is hard to do at the Sprint Cup level and anytime you have a shot it is expected out of us, not just from the fans but from the teams to go out and make the most of it and make it happen. When I look at Denny’s move, I would do the same thing if I was him so I don’t really have any room to speak.”
DO YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE HAD THAT MENTALITY SO YOU KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU CAN RACE EACH OTHER OUT THERE? “I think everyone races in their own way. I think you have to figure out what that way is for you. Early in my career I would say I wasn’t a very aggressive driver and I didn’t win much. I figured out what works for me and I kind of found that technique and what that is for me to be able to race. There is a time and a place for it. Some moves like that early in the race and you may say, “Why did you do that?’ But the fact of the matter is with 30 to go you gotta race. That is part of it. Everyone has their own way of doing it and different generations of drivers may race differently. I have seen that recently. That is just part of it. Everyone finds their own way and the way they have been brought up in racing and successful to them is going to be different and it molds you into the driver that you are.”
SOME OF THE YOUNG DRIVERS TALK ABOUT COMING HERE TO DOVER AND LEARNING FUEL MILEAGE BECAUSE THE THROTTLE TIME IS SO MUCH AND YOU HAVE TO LEARN THAT ON TRACK. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOU LEARNED TO DO THAT? “It is tough. Anytime you have to slow down is really hard for me. I am sure it is hard for the rest of the drivers. It is part of the game probably three or four times a year that you will have to do that. It seems like there are a few races in a row when you look at Pocono coming up and those type of tracks where you get the fuel mileage races coming up. Repave tracks are typically like that. It definitely takes some time. The most challenging part about it is understanding how much you can back off and still stay in front of a car or do you need to let a car go and the communication is almost the hardest part. Communicating with your crew chief on how much you need to save, do you need to race a guy or let him go, what the situation is. You have to be very aware of your surroundings and your crew chief does too. You don’t ever know 100-percent how much fuel is in the car. We don’t have fuel gauges. It is all a calculation from earlier in the race and the way you change your driving style to what that calculation will be. Nobody truly knows because we don’t practice it very often. It is all an educated guess.”
IS IT POSSIBLE TO WIN AT THIS LEVEL WITHOUT BEING AGGRESSIVE? JIMMIE JOHNSON SEEMS MORE PASSIVE, IS THAT HIS STYLE? “Well, he sure has won a lot. That guy is doing pretty good in this sport. It depends. Sometimes you don’t have to make moves like that. Sometimes you are up front and don’t have to make spectacular moves. I have also seen a lot of people win with cars that aren’t the winning car and that is from making spectacular moves and gutsy calls on the race track or pit road or wherever. That aggressive look at things sometimes goes wrong but sometimes goes really right and you have a fifth or sixth place car win the race. I think it is entertaining. Is there more than one way to win a race? Of course there is. That is why you have to change your approach to each track and each race and scenario depending on what you have that day.”
IS THE WAY TALLADEGA CAME OUT, GOING BACK TO THAT MOVE, ARE WE GOING TO SEE MORE OF THAT STUFF DUE TO THE LOW DOWNFORCE PACKAGE? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE TO EXECUTE THAT KIND OF PASS AND NOT WORRY ABOUT THE CARS BEING SO AERO DEPENDANT? “Are there ways we can make it better? There is always room for improvement. We can make anything in this sport better. We can make our cars better, the tracks better, anything. You name it. There is always room for improvement. The aero part of it is we are going 200 mph and no matter what we do we are going to rely on air to a certain extent. We rely on it less today than we did last year. We are able to make moves and be closer to cars than we were last year. It is an obvious and definite step to be better in that department as far as having close racing. But if you look at it, if you compare it Martinsville. Martinsville is one of the slowest tracks we go to. Cars can get right next to each other and bump and bang and you don’t see them just get out of control and crash because we aren’t relying on air as much because we are going slower. When we go to Kansas, one of the fastest tracks we go to especially mid-corner speeds, we are relying on air so much going so fast through the corners that when you lose that air the car becomes out of control. With that being said, we have made a step to the good on that with the rules package we have today. We definitely know we are going in the right direction. Do we want more? Yeah, of course. We want to be able to run side-by-side and all that. Will that ever happen? It will probably never be perfect but we are making gains on it and the racing is better and we are seeing that every week. We are racing closer and we are able to see that. It is something that we are always going to rely on air when we are going fast. That is what makes speed, the aero downforce, and when you lose that the cars don’t handle as well. No matter what we are punching a hole in the air and that is part of it.”
