Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
New Hampshire 301 – New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Friday, July 15, 2016
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion, returns home to the Northeast and New Hampshire Motor Speedway in search of the third straight Cup series win for Ford and Team Penske. Logano spoke about the team’s recent success and more with media members following opening practice Friday afternoon.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – YOU HAD A BUSY DAY YESTERDAY FOR A GREAT CAUSE, THE JOEY LOGANO FOUNDATION. “Yeah, we had our golf tournament yesterday and our dinner last night and we had a ton of people there. Over 500 people were there and we raised around $200,000 and we are still waiting for the end number. What a great event. It was more than I expected. It was really exciting to do that in my home area and see a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while. I wish I got to spend more time there. I got in from Indy the night before and then we flew up here last night. I didn’t get to spend much time at home but it was nice to see everyone. It is always a fun weekend for me to come to New England and New Hampshire particularly.”
YOU ARE PRETTY GOOD AT THIS TRACK. YOU HAVE GOOD HISTORY HERE. “We have been okay. I don’t feel like it is our best race track but we have made huge progress. I was looking at that picture over there when we won that race and that, in my mind, is the biggest win of my career. Larger than Daytona. Because it is such a challenging race track for me personally. It took me a very long time to understand how to go fast around this place and to kind of conquer your toughest race track which happens to be your home race track was a very special day.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FOUNDATION? YOU HAVE RAISED OVER $1 MILLION NOW. WHAT IS THE CORE PHILOSOPHY? “I talked a little last night about having a new goal. The goal for me in the past used to just be to win championships and then I talk about being a champion in life and what that means. That means doing a lot more things than on the race track and being able to change people’s lives. Last night we definitely changed some people’s lives and inspired people to help in that direction. We had such a great event. Jeff Hanson was there, he does the paintings, there is someone that changes some lives. He has given $2 million to over 200 different charities and he is younger than me. He is like 23 or something like that. That is incredible. He was there and he sold a couple paintings for $20,000 each last night. That was incredible for him to come up there and do that. We appreciate him being there. It was an amazing night with a lot of generosity from a lot of different people.”
WAS YOUR LAST WIN HERE VINDICATION BECAUSE PEOPLE QUESTIONED THE FIRST WIN HERE? “Yeah, the first one it is what it is. It is in the record books so I take it but it wasn’t the way most wins come or the way any driver really wants to get them but you take them anyway you can. I have lost a lot since then that way. I am okay with taking that win the way we got it. Winning the second time the way we did meant more, yes. It felt to me like my first win at this track because we won it the right way.”
AFTER WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK AT KENTUCKY, WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THE NEW PACKAGE? “We identified some mistakes we made in practice and I feel like I steered the team in the wrong direction in practice which cost us when the race started. I am glad we identified our mistake. It is not a bad thing to make mistakes as long as you learn from them and we definitely learned from the mistakes made there. Before the race, mistakes is what put us in that position to be not racing the way we want to. We were racing to stay in certain positions and not to be aggressive and move forward. We identified where those issues were and I think the new package, the ’17 package, which we don’t know what the new package is going to be but the ’17 package was loose. It is directionally percentage-wise aero to the front which makes the car freer and we have to tighten the cars a lot which makes them hard to turn. I think the balance is a little off. We can tweak it and make it better. Where we go with it, I don’t know. I think we can make some improvements on it though and I think the racing is good with it. I don’t see anything wrong. I think it is cool when you see cars – unfortunately, I was one of them – it is cool when cars are sideways out of control and crashing. That means it is really hard. It is supposed to be. It is the Sprint Cup level. It isn’t easy. Even with the ’16 package, it isn’t easy but when you see cars sideways and having those, ‘Oh my God’ moments when things are about to go bad is entertaining and good for our sport.”
WHERE DOES GOING FOR THE WIN STOP AND EXPERIMENTING START? “It is a constant struggle every week. You can never stay stagnant and say something worked last time and we are going to do it again because it isn’t going to work again because everyone has gotten better. You have to have constant improvement and the only way to do that is to try new things. This week I am personally trying some new things because I feel we have been stuck here at a fifth place car. That isn’t bad but we want to win and this is a Chase race in the fall and will be super important. So we will try to learn something and do something different. So far, so good, but you don’t really know until the race. There are always ways to improve and if you stop doing that you are going to get passed before you know it. We are constantly looking to find something new but we still keep a log book on what we did.”
HOW MUCH CONFIDENCE DO YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW WITH ALL THE SUCCESS LATELY FROM TEAM PENSKE? “Things can change quick, right? You see through the season certain teams are really good and then fall off and then come back. It is waves. When a team finds something new they will be successful and then other teams catch up really quick. That is racing. I feel like our team does a good job at trying to stay as flat as we can and I think we have recently found some speed in our race cars, really ever since Charlotte, and I feel we have been making some progress comparably to the field. I think it is a good time for it. We have to start building that confidence and momentum up and build faster race cars. I talk about finding another gear when we go to the Chase. We need to find a ninth cylinder here in a few weeks that we don’t believe is there right now but we have to find a way to find it.”
AS A YOUNGER GUY, DO YOU SPEND ANY MORE TIME THESE DAYS THINKING MORE ABOUT POTENTIAL RAMIFICATIONS OR LONG TERM RAMIFICATIONS OF INJURIES? “You think about it but not when you are in the race car. That is a huge distraction if you think about it in the race car and you will never win again. I think when I am away and not in the race car, in the shop and talking about that stuff, it is something you should talk about. Your safety and your life is something you should put some thought into. As I get older I think about that stuff more often and don’t do as many crazy things away from the race track as I used to. I think you just become smarter. You just know you shouldn’t do things because you know what is on the line here at the track. In the race car, I feel safe inside mine. I know Team Penske does a great job building our race cars and NASCAR has done a good job here recently on adding a lot of Safer Barrier to the race tracks and that has helped a ton with a lot of these hits. I thought last week when I was going into the way that it was going to hurt really bad. I thought possibly it was going to hurt me. I had three seconds to think about it before I hit the way and I thought it would be bad. I was fine though and I am really impressed with the safety that Team Penske and NASCAR have done to get these cars safer.”
