Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Straight Talk Wireless 400 Media Availability | Homestead-Miami Speedway
Friday, October 25, 2024
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Team Penske in the NASCAR Cup Series, clinched a spot in the Championship 4 for the sixth time in his career after winning last weekend’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Logano talked about that and preparing of the final event of the year in Phoenix earlier today at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT HAS THIS WEEK BEEN LIKE IN YOUR MEETINGS, KNOWING THAT THIS RACE AND MARTINSVILLE, I’M NOT SAYING THEY ARE IRRELEVANT, BUT IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS, YOU’RE LOOKING AHEAD, SO KIND OF WALK ME THROUGH WHAT THAT’S BEEN LIKE.
“Yeah, pretty much what you would expect. We went over Vegas for a little bit, just like we typically would after any race. An overview of Miami, of just the details of things that we’re looking for here, and then we started talking about Phoenix and pretty much just stayed there the rest of the time. Not that this race doesn’t matter to us, but the fact that we earned an advantage by being able to focus onto Phoenix before anybody else, we need to take advantage of that opportunity. That’s a big opportunity to have. So as much as we want to run well here and I think we will. We need to have all our focus on Phoenix right now.”
WHEN YOU LOOK BACK TO 2018 AND 2022, I THINK YOU WON THE FIRST RACE IN THAT ROUND EACH YEAR. WHAT DO YOU PULL FROM THAT?
“It’s just really kind of going through the details. You know, it’s, even for everybody. You know, you even think about logistically everything that happens, right? If you lock yourself into Marksville, you got a couple days before that car’s gotta be on the road headed out west. So you don’t have much time to really change much of the setup or whatever things you’re wanting to do, right? You can practice, obviously, but you are just massaging the little things, you don’t have a whole lot of time there. If you think about it even from a partner’s perspective, right now they know you’re racing for a championship, a lot of people want to show up now. You know, now you can book a suite, you can get the travel stuff for everybody. All those distractions that you’ll have on championship weekend, you can knock a lot of that out now, which to me, is something. That definitely adds up, because you have media on Tuesday, you have media again on Thursday. So you really only have one day at the shop, one and a half days before the car is loading up and going. So you just don’t have the time. This advantage does help a little bit with those type of things too.”
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE SO EARLY IF YOU’RE ALREADY LOCKED IN? YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ROLL IN LIKE TOMORROW MORNING.
“This is just who I am. I flew on the team plane down here. I’m just an early person. So, I’ve got an appearance tonight, so I will go do that. Like I said, I’m still here to try to win the race. I’m not going to just lay up and not just start the race and put it away. That’s not who I am, it’s not what we want to do for our sponsors or for our fans. We still want to try. It’s just changed a lot of our focus, that’s all.”
I KNOW THE TRACKS ARE WAY DIFFERENT, BUT IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN TRY THIS WEEK OR NEXT WEEK TO POTENTIALLY SEE IF IT WORKS AT PHOENIX?
“Not particularly. A lot of things you would maybe want to try things for this racetrack because you have no risk if it goes bad. Typically in this race, in the playoffs, it’s very important and you can’t afford to take risks whether it’s running the wall more often or setup stuff or whatever it may be, you wouldn’t take a lot of risk because unless you’re back is up against the wall and you have nothing to lose. You would say, hey, let’s get a solid top five out of this thing or something like that. Or we can kind of go for all or nothing and we can do that kind of in every category throughout the weekend.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE A FAVORITE HERE TO GET THIS CHAMPIONSHIP? I MEAN, YOU’RE THE FIRST GUY IN, YOU’RE A TWO-TIME CHAMPION, YOU’VE WON THERE BEFORE. DOES YOUR TEAM HAVE THAT KIND OF VIBE GOING ON RIGHT NOW?
“Absolutely. I don’t see why we wouldn’t. I always feel like we can win the race no matter what. And we figured it out a way last week, even when we weren’t the fastest car. We were the best team that figured out how to win that race. That’s where I feel like we have such an advantage over the other teams, is that we’re very well-rounded. I think that gives us a lot of opportunities to capitalize when no one expects it. And now you’re going to give us more time to focus on one track. So we need it. So at that point, yeah, I feel like we definitely have the advantage over everybody.”
IS THERE A RESPONSIBILITY YOU HAVE IN HELPING RYAN BLANEY THIS WEEKEND OR NEXT WEEKEND?
“Yes, within reason of what we can do. If there is anything that they want to try in practice or set up wise or anything like that, we are open to it. What do you guys need to make sure you have the fastest 12 Ford Mustang out there? What can we do to help you from that perspective? So we’ll do what we can to be good teammates, for sure.”
IF YOU GUYS HAVE WORKED WELL TOGETHER IN THE PAST, HOW MUCH CLOSER CAN YOU GUYS GET, OR WHAT’S SO DIFFERENT ABOUT HOW YOU TWO OR THE TWO TEAMS IN PARTICULAR HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WORK TOGETHER THE LAST FEW WEEKS OR EVEN THROUGHOUT THE SEASON?
“Yeah, the two teams definitely work a lot together lately on performing setups. Where it doesn’t seem to be very separate anymore, of like, this team doing one thing and this team doing something completely different. And everybody looking at each other and saying, well, why would you do that? Why would you do that? At least they’re sitting together and going through things together. I think that helps. I think Blaney and I work really well together off the racetrack and on the racetrack. And that relationship has only grown even more so after his championship, which I think is great. And it seems like we’ve been able to really be open with each other. And it’s really gone back and forth where I think we’re helping each other quite a bit. I think that’s just overall going to make our team better and Austin included in that as well. We’re all open to each other. There’s nobody hiding anything.”
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY BEING CLOSER SINCE RYAN WON HIS CHAMPIONSHIP?
“I don’t know exactly why. I don’t know. He’s got a championship now and now it’s not necessarily as much of a competition to where we both want to see Team Penske succeed. I feel like we’re more looking at it from the same lens than we used to. I don’t know if it’s because of the championship or is it that we’re both growing up. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it does seem like it does seem to help.”
YOU AND KYLE (LARSON) ARE THE ONLY TWO DRIVERS TO REPEAT CHAMPIONSHIPS IN THIS FORMAT. WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU TO ADD ANOTHER ONE IN THIS PLAYOFF FORMAT?
“It would mean a lot in any playoff format. A championship is a championship. That’s what I said last week. There’s one goal when you start at Daytona and that is to win the big trophy. We get a great opportunity to do that again. So, yeah, three would be great, four would be better. There’s never enough of them, so it would be nice.”
LOOKING THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHAMPION, SEEING YOURSELF AS A CHAMPION, DOES THAT GIVE YOU AN ADVANTAGE OVER THE OTHER DRIVERS? I MEAN, OTHER THAN BLANEY, KYLE LARSON MAYBE, DOES THAT GIVE YOU AN ADVANTAGE GOING INTO THAT FORMAT?
“There’s no doubt after you’ve done something once, you’re gonna be better the second time, right? We talked a minute ago about what the week is like leading into it, and all the other things you have to do, all the distractions, all the stress that’s there. It’s a hard week, there’s no doubt. I laugh all the time because so many drivers, in all three series, a lot of their answer is, we just treat it as another race, it’s just another race. BS, it’s not another race. Not even close, it’s the championship, it’s the biggest race you’ll ever be a part of. It’s bigger than that. Everyone tries to minimize it so they can sleep better at night. It’s not about that. And I think for some drivers and teams, they love that pressure and I think there’s some that just hate it and it affects them in a negative way. It probably depends on who you are, but I know going through things more than once definitely helps you know how to prepare for what’s coming your way.”
DO YOU HAVE TO BE BUILT A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY TO KIND OF ACCEPT THAT PRESSURE AND MAKE THE MOST OF IT?
“Absolutely. Everybody’s different, right? Everybody handles things in different ways and some people get excited about the do or die situations and they want that. Some people want the ball as the clock winds down, they want to take the shot. And there’s other people who are like, I don’t want to be the guy that misses the shot. I want to be the guy that makes the shot. It is just a mindset. Everybody is just differet. I have found ways for me that work in racing and makes me excited about these moments, these late race restart type moments. It motivates me and makes me excited about those moments. But others have to find that way, or maybe they don’t have that way. Everybody’s different. That’s why we all do different things in life. Everybody’s good at certain things and not at others. There’s a lot of things I suck at. But luckily I found something I’m decent at.”
I KNOW THERE’S BEEN A LOT GOING ON AND IT’S BEEN A SHORT TIME SINCE YOU WENT UP TO THE ASHEVILLE AREA SO IS THERE ANYTHING MORE IN TERMS OF YOU PLANNING AND DOING THINGS WITH YOUR FOUNDATION OR IS IT STILL TOO SOON TO KIND OF PUT EVERYTHING TOGETHER BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS KIND OF, THERE’S SO MUCH THAT’S HAPPENED IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS?
“Not too soon. Lots of things brewing on that project. I spent a lot of time this week on that as well. Lots of really cool ideas, lots of support. A couple of plans we have in works already, we haven’t even announced it yet, so I can’t tell you. But it will be very shortly, you will hear something. But, there are some really cool projects coming our way. I’m really, really excited about a couple of them. They’re going to be really impactful to a lot of families. So, in a cool way too. I’m really excited about the support from not only our fans, but our sponsors as well. They’re like, hey, what do you need to do? We want to help to and jump on board. So the more people you get together, the more impactful we can all be. The job is far from done up there and I think everybody knows that. We’re looking forward to setting up a few plans that will help us in the long term.”
SO YOU’RE ABLE TO BE INVOLVED IN SOME OF THAT PLANNING THIS WEEKEND. WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN THE CASE WITH ANY OTHER WEEK OR DID IT KIND OF HELP WITH WINNING AND MAYBE WHILE YOU’RE STILL TRYING TO WIN THIS WEEKEND, THAT IT JUST KIND OF ALLOWS YOU TO KIND OF LOOK AT SOME OTHER THINGS BIG PICTURE?
“I don’t think it would have changed, to be honest with you. I might have been more distracted in those meetings. The ADD may have kicked in a different way. But yeah, that to me is, I’ve always said it up here before, but that’s my why, right? Like, why do we do it? And I’ve said it many times, championships are cool and they’re great, but do nothing with it. What is it? It’s an empty cup. That’s what they are. So if you can do something larger than just take home a trophy and do something with it, that’s when it becomes really impactful.”
