JOEY LOGANO POLE WINNER PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – TELL US ABOUT STARTING UP FRONT HERE ON SUNDAY: “Yeah, obviously it was a great lap. The car was great from when we unloaded. I was laughing when we came in saying we made good adjustments today and it was a joke because we didn’t change anything from when we unloaded. We were pretty good the first lap on the race track. Partly because we did the test here and that definitely helped us which is great. Starting up front is always important, especially in the playoffs when it is a cut off race. We have a decent cushion but that can change really quick. Hopefully we can keep that track position and be there at the end to try to get a third win here. That would be something really special. We have a good car in qualifying trim. We will know more tomorrow. It has been awhile since we got a pole, so that felt real nice. Especially here because they give you that pedal car for winning it. And the good thing is is now I have a little man the drive it. So that part’s kind of neat, he will wake up to a shiny new toy.”
SO HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT’LL BE BEFORE HE CAN BE WHEELING THAT THING AROUND? “You know, honestly, right now, he just loves going on the golf cart. That’s like his routine. We wake up and it’s usually around six. And we wait until the sun comes out now because the sun comes up later. And the first thing we do is get on the golf cart. And he is angry until we get on it. That’s like his thing. I don’t know. It’s the nightly routine to his bath, golf cart ride, bed. That’s kind of how that works. So maybe we’ll graduate to pedal car here soon. He grabs a little steering wheel and he goes like this is hilarious. I don’t know. I’ll let you know tomorrow. When he wakes up, I’m going to put them in this thing.”
YOU GO OUT THERE AND YOU PUT IT ON THE POLE, AND YOU’RE SUPER FAST. I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY ALWAYS WANT TO WIN, BUT WAS YOUR INTENTION TO PLAY IT SAFE THIS WEEKEND OR ARE YOU GOING ALL OUT? “I have one gear. I’m not much of a play it safe guy, I’m not good at it for one, you know, I’d say the last place we played it safe was the Roval and I think that was just kind of like we had to and there’s so many variables there that we had to kind of play that race safe to make sure we got through to the next round to keep our championship hopes life so you know, this race you know, I wouldn’t say it’s a wild card like we don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve raced here a lot so we kind of know how the race is going to play out. So you know, plan is to race hard like we typically do. We’ve got a good car, obviously, the car’s got a lot of speed. it’s a normal race for us, it’s a cut off race yeah there’s just points involved and yes we got to keep up with that but it’s still just a race and anytime you line up for these things it’s it’s another race and the goal is the same.”
DID IT SURPRISE YOU AT ALL THAT YOU RAN THE FASTEST LAP OF THE DAY WITH TWO ROUNDS ON THE TIRES AND MIGHT THAT BE AN INDICATION THAT TIRE STRATEGY MIGHT BE VIABLE ON SUNDAY? “Not surprising, for multiple reasons. Sun was going down. It was getting colder. It definitely seems like as the sun goes down the track picks up grip it has so much grip today. From lap one Blaney and I were laughing about it. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh we’re going so fast’. When the sun’s not out and you know practice was overcast and it just feel like in qualifying trim you just booking along so fast. It makes it a lot of fun. It is definitely one of those racetracks that the more you go for it the bigger the reward is. Also the penalty is pretty big. We have seen that for a couple cars today too. You get a little outside of it and you are going for a ride and it is hard to regain control. It is one of those places that the more risk you take the faster you go, but it is also more risk. It is a fun place. I enjoy that. It is really cool. When the race starts, there will be some tire fall off for sure. This place has definitely worn into a really good racetrack, one that you can run the top as fast as you run the middle or the bottom for that case. It puts on a good race. That is probably what makes this one of the best repaves we’ve had. The fact that when they redesigned the race track when they paved it to make the top really come in, they did a really good job with that.”
HOW CONFIDENT WERE YOU THAT YOU WOULD SIT ON THE POLE TODAY? “We are really happy but I think in practice we had good speed. We were close through the first couple of rounds, a few hundredths off, not that far off. We were okay. The last round we made a couple adjustments and were a little tight the second round. We freed it up a little bit and went a little harder from behind the wheel, went for a little more, kind of an all or nothing type of lap and it worked out.”
YOUR FIRST POLE OF THE YEAR. YOU TIE NEIL BONNETT AND BENNY PARSONS WITH 20 CAREER POLES: “That is cool. I didn’t know that. Great stat. Any time you can pull up those names and be equal to them as far as the stats that is incredible. That is really cool. I didn’t know that. Those names have been around our sport forever pretty much. That is definitely an honor to be close to that or with them. They have done a lot more for our sport at this point than I have, so I don’t feel like I am quite an equal to them but it is definitely neat to hear that stat.”
OBVIOUSLY IT IS EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF, BUT HOW WILL YOU SHARE INFORMATION WITH KESELOWSKI WITH THE HARDER ROAD HE HAS TO GET INTO THE NEXT ROUND? “I don’t think there is any difference than any other week. We share information every week. It isn’t like, oh gosh, we need to win so everything we do is for them. We do that stuff every week. It is an open notebook. We run our practices and then we sit down and we say, ‘Ok, here is what my car is doing, what your car is doing.’ The crew chiefs go over what they did for changes. Sometimes it is hard to compare a little bit. if you have three or four little things different in your car and then you make a change on top of that, a lot of things offset each other. Every action has a reaction on the race car. It is very finicky. Sometimes it is hard to really measure if it is better on one car if it will be better on your car, or the other car. I think overall it is an open notebook. If anyone needs to go to exactly what is in each others car, we can do that. I would expect most teams probably run their teams the same way these days. I would assume. It is something that we strive and work really hard to get to that point. Something that I don’t think is very easy. There are a lot of details that have to be put in the right way but I think we do a good job at it.”
ISN’T THERE EVER A MOMENT YOU WANT TO BE A LITTLE SELFISH AND HOLD BACK A LITTLE? IS THERE EVER THAT MOMENT? “I think if you have that attitude you won’t ever be in position to win anything anyway. There will be times you have an open book and you will get beat by it. That is tough to swallow but at some point the shoe is on the other foot and you will need help. If you are that jerk at the time that said, ‘No, I am not giving you what I’ve got.’ At some point the roles will be reversed and you will be off and your teammate is going to be fast and they are going to say, ‘No, remember that one time?’ I think you definitely have to think big picture in these moments. It is easy to just stare at the hood pins and not look further down the road but I think it is important for us to be teammates in all situations. Whether it is superspeedway racing, here, setups, whatever it is. We need to be smart with each other. I think that has paid dividends in the past.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED OVER THE YEARS IN THE PLAYOFFS THAT YOU HAVE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS TO HELP YOU AT THIS POINT THIS YEAR? “There are going to be ups and downs. It is a long 10 weeks for sure. I think you have to be able to shut it off when you go home. At least that is my model. I work hard during the day and prepare and do everything I possibly can to make sure we show up to the race track and I am ready and hopefully our race team we do that together and we are all ready when we get to the race track. But when I get home at night, I am done. I can shut it off. I can hang out with Britney and Hudson and turn on a TV show or something and just hang out and give little man a golf cart ride. I can do that. I have a light switch that I can just turn it on and off. I try to do that. I think early in my career it was all I had. All I had was racing and that was all I ever thought about. I guess I wasn’t as deep at the time, I was just a racer. Now I realize that life is more than just racing and I think that helps me.”
WHAT IS THE SHOW THAT HELPS YOU UNWIND? “We watch Ballers. I like Ballers. We watch This is Us, but I call it ‘That’s Them’. We have been watching The Fosters lately too. After Hudson goes to sleep and we are exhausted we turn on a show and I usually fall asleep watching it.”
DO YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE GUYS THAT NEED WINS DOING CRAZY STRATEGY OR IS THIS A PLACE YOU HAVE TO TAKE FOUR TIRES AND STRATEGY REALLY WON’T COME INTO PLAY? “I think stragtegy will come into play. It is typically a four tire place but is somewhere that tires do wear out but they don’t wear out as aggressively as some other race tracks or more wore out race tracks. That being said, it is important to understand where your competitors are. It is important to know if someone has to win or if they are playing the conservative card and just have to get through. It is important for myself to know that, for Todd to know that as far as how he calls the race. It is easy to say to just run your race but in these situations you have to be smart and know where everyone else is because it may change some of your decisions in your race.”
DOES IT CONCERN YOU AT ALL THAT IN THE CASE OF KASEY KAHNE’S RETIREMENT, HE REALLY DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WITH HIS HEALTH? “I think anytime you hear of a race car driver going through something you want to learn about it as much as you can because it can be something that is tied to something that is going on in the race car. The heat that we face every week in our race car has to take a toll on your body. We train for it. I feel like Kasey was one of the drivers that was in shape more than others. Probably more than me even. I don’t know the details or what has happened. It stinks to hear that it has forced him into an early retirement. He had a great career. We will miss him around here for sure. Yeah, it is important for us all to understand what it is and at the same time, that is why we prepare, because you never know what is going to happen in our life, in a race car. Just walking across the street you can get hit by a car and all this is over. It is important to look past the hood pins in life and make sure you are prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”
