JOEY LOGANO PRESS CONFERENCE
WALK US THROUGH THAT LAP YOU LAID DOWN? “I am glad we finally got a pole here. We have qualified really well here, I don’t know what our average starting position is but I feel like it is really good, but we have never really put the whole deal together in the last run. We have won plenty of rounds but have never actually gotten the pole. I am glad we could finally do that. I thought it wasn’t going to be good enough. My one and two were good but three and four were tight and I was coming up the race track and I didn’t think it was it. But it was good enough to get the pole. Either way, it was good enough so I am happy about that.”
WITH ALL THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING YOU RECENTLY, WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR YOU AND YOUR MOMENTUM? “I woke up this morning thinking about our race car and how we can end up sitting here at the end of the day. That is the goal. In between do I have to think about other things? Yeah, obviously we had that meeting today and there were a lot of distractions that we don’t typically have but it is a matter of managing those distractions and getting your head back in the right spot for when it is game time. I was able to use everything the right way, use our tools and our people around me to help me get my mind back where it needs to be and be able to focus and lay down a good lap.”
WHAT WILL THE HEAT DO TO THE RACE ON SUNDAY? “Well, it will make me sweat a little bit. It will be a little toasty. I think racing in the heat of the day when it is hot out is the best racing. I think maybe the whole garage may agree with that besides the fact that it is just hot out. When it is hot the track gets wide, it is greasy, there is a lot more passing, tires become more important due to more fall-off and everything points to a very good race when the sun is out. In my opinion the racing gets a lot better. It will be warm but we train for this, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
TALK ABOUT THE STRONG START FOR RYAN BLANEY AND WHAT HE HAS ADDED TO THE PENSKE ORGANIZATION: “Ryan is really turning into a very, very good driver. Everyone has to go through kind of the stages. Some are quicker than others. It took me four years to get to where we are today and I am still not where I want to be but I am getting closer. I think when I look at Ryan Blaney, he has come up very quick in my opinion. He has been able to figure out what it takes and you think about the situation he is put in, does he have fast race cars, yes, but he is new to racing these things. Jeremy Bullins is doing a great job when he was new to being a Cup crew chief. This is something Todd and I went through our first year together, trying to figure out what works at each race track. You have to build that notebook. We talk about that all the time. To be fast you have to understand what works for you. I will be the first to tell you that Ryan drives different than me and a lot different than Brad and I drive differently than both of them as well. You have to figure out what works for you and each race track and build off of that. That is where the 22 team has gotten to where it is at today, figuring out what works for us. A lot of times it is different and a little out there but it works for me and Todd and we are able to make something out of it. That is the same thing that Ryan and Jeremy have to go through and you can see a lot of the hard work coming through right now.”
CAN YOU SEE HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PENSKE ORGANIZATION? “For sure. You want your teammates to be fast and pushing each other. When you are always the number one guy, that doesn’t push the team ahead. You have to have someone applying that pressure and pushing you ahead a little bit. Brad and I have been able to do that for a long time and now with Blaney in the 21 car that has been able to start pushing us as a race team as well. That is all great things for us. That is what we want to see. We want that. He qualified third last week so he has speed. He raced really well last week too. It is good. It is really good.”
CAN YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE OUT ON THE TRACK WHEN YOU ARE RACING GUYS LIKE CHASE (ELLIOTT) AND RYAN COMPARED TO LAST YEAR? “How much better they get? Yeah. They are pretty good. That is healthy for our sport. Lets face it, we are getting to the point where a lot of top race car drivers will be retiring in the next five years or so, give or take. There has to be some good talent coming up to have this series move on. Those names have to grow. We need to have star power in our sport. You see that with a lot of these young guys coming in. They are making their brands for themselves and who they are and the way they race and what they do. It is interesting to watch it evolve for sure and you can see it on the race track as well with the moves they made their rookie season – you make rookie mistakes – and then you see as they move on the thought process before they make a move to gain a spot.”
DO YOU WISH YOU WERE RUNNING THE XFINITY RACE TOMORROW? “I hate watching racing because I want to race. I love the sport. Don’t get me wrong. I love watching racing and I am a fan of it but when you do it, when you are a race car driver, you want to be in the car all the time. I want to race every chance I can. I understand the rule and how it is and that is okay. It is part of it. I will be happy to watch it and root on Blaney out there but when we sit down at the beginning of the year I want to race all of them and we have to somehow figure out the right ones to race now that we can only run 10. This being a race that really none of us can race because you have to have five years experience or less. It will be interesting to watch. I think it is a good opportunity for a lot of the Xfinity regulars but there are still a lot of guys racing Cup with under five years experience that are really good.”
