CONCORD, N.C. — Giving his thoughts on the impact of the changes to the aero package, Joey Logano said “the racing was significantly better than last year.”
In his post-race media availability, the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford was asked what impact the changes to the aero package had on his car and the race.
“I thought the racing was significantly better than last year,” Logano said. “As a racer out there, I remember this race last year and I’d get trapped because all you can do is run the bottom. That was last year. On the bottom, on the bottom and it’s really hard to pass someone because you can’t get clean air. It was a lot of fun as a drivertonight to be able to move up the race track and find speed. That’s something here at Charlotte at night that is very rare. You don’t see that at night here at Charlotte very often, so I think taking the downforce off these cars, being able to move to the right side of a car and be able to continue forward progress was really nice. It was really fun to be a part of that.”
In the past, the driver leading the race in the final segment would just drive off and the dirty air made it next to impossible to pass him. Not only was Logano able to run down Kyle Larson in the final segment, he was able to pass him as well.
“I think it promoted a lot of side-by-side racing, a lot of passing. It took six or seven laps for the second lane to come in after the tires would wear a little bit, but the tires would definitely wear out, that’s for sure. There was definitely a lot of fall-off it felt like from inside the car and that’s what we want to see. That’s the reason for doing all this is to promote better racing, promote more tire fall-off. We saw that tonight. We saw a lot of side-by-side racing, saw a lot of fall-off. There was so much strategy that a lot of us didn’t know what was going on because there was so much strategy going on in this race, but that’s what it promoted. It promoted a lot of hard racing and I thought it was great.”
Todd Gordon, Logano’s crew chief, was also asked about what impact he saw on the race.
“I don’t know that I would say significant,” Gordon said. “I mean, Joey can answer from how they drive, but from a setup standpoint I thought it was something we could adapt to in 10 minutes or the 20 minutes of practice that we had. I think we’re all fairly smart to what’s going on. It was kind of an even loss for aerodynamic forces, so you didn’t have to make a huge balance shift in the car for it. It was something I think if guys had decent packages they at least had a foundation to build off of. I can’t speak for how they drive.”
Logano was also asked about his thoughts on the format.
“There was a point I came over the radio and said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t really want to know what’s going on. Let me drive the car and you call the race’ because I was confused,” he said. “All I know is if there’s a car in front of me, we should pass them. That’s kind of where my head was. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think it is. It’s complicated for this man (Todd), but not so much for me. Sometimes the simple life is a little easier inside your race car. I had my hands full with enough things, so I was able to focus in on my job and Todd was able to focus in on his job. The whole falling back and trying to position yourself to the front didn’t really play because there were only two or three cars – I think a lot of cars got trapped on pit stops when the caution came out and they got trapped down a lap. It didn’t really play out like a lot of us thought it would when there are only three cars on old tires in front of you, so we got through them in the first corner and then it was like, ‘Alright.’ It was Larson and I for this thing. I felt confident that we had a very good shot at racing for the win when we were restarting there at the end.”
