Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, October 18, 2019
Hollywood Casino 400 | MEDIA AVAILABILITY
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang — WHAT IS YOUR MINDSET COMING IN HERE IN THIS “MUST-WIN” SITUATION THIS WEEKEND? “We have been in this spot quite a few times. And I say this during the playoffs, at some point no matter what during these playoffs you will be in a do-or-doi moment. Even if you have even the most smooth nine races you can have and you get to the Championship 4, when you go to Miami it is do-or-die. You win or you are out. You will always be put in these situations and I feel like as a team we are pretty strong in these situations. I feel confident. I feel good about this week. I feel prepared and I feel like this is a good race track for us in the past. We have won a couple of times here. After Vegas we had a really, really fast car there and a car capable of winning for sure. This is a similar race track to that now with this 550 package the way it is. I feel good about that. It is still going to be a crazy race and going to be very intense on restarts. I think everyone, if you rewatch the race from the spring here this is maybe one of the best races of the year now here in Kansas. The restarts are just insane where everybody goes and tries to make passes on that curved front straightaway. It is going to be crazy for sure out there. You ahve to make sure you can control what you can control. The restarts and making sure you don’t get any damage and things like that. Outside of that you just do your job and you will be just fine.”
ANY CONCERN ABOUT THE RASH OF MECHANICAL STUFF GOING ON AT PENSKE RECENTLY? “I think it is just kind of freaky things. I am not too concerned about it. It is something I can’t control as a driver. We should make sure everything is fine and it was two different things at Dover, but I think everything is hopefully fixed. They say it is. It should be fine.”
YOU TOOK A LITTLE HEAT FROM OTHER GUYS ABOUT DOVER AND THE WAY YOU WERE RACING. YOU WERE DOING IT BECAUSE OF POINTS. DO YOU FEEL A LITTLE VINDICATED NOW COMING HERE THAT POINTS DO MATTER? “Yeah, I said that two weeks ago that I needed every point that I can get because of the situation that we are in. We used up all our cushion and then last week we got a bunch of points which is good but we are basically on the cut line. We are ahead of it. We were behind it but now we are ahead. If one of those cars inside the bottom four wins this week we would be the first out. We are two points from the 2 car. You tell me what every point means. It could mean the whole championship. That is my mindset and I believe that is where it has to be when we are kind of put with our backs against the wall and have to perform. We have to get every point that is there.”
HOW DO YOU APPROACH THIS RACE? DO YOU HAVE TO TIP-TOE A LITTLE BIT OR CAN YOU BE AGGRESSIVE FROM THE WORD GO TO GET THE STAGE POINTS? “I am not a very good tip-toer. I am more of an aggressive style racer. That has worked for me in the past and I don’t change my style very much from track to track. Only when it is necessary. I think this track rewards the smart racer but it also rewards the aggressive racer in a lot of ways. You can’t be scared to make the moves on the restarts but you don’t want to just make moves to make moves. A lot of times you see drivers do that on restarts and take the run that is ahead of them but it doesn’t mean they actually went anywhere. They may go somewhere for a corner and lose five spots on the straightaway. Those are the things you have to really look out for. Just like superspeedway racing. There were plenty of times you get a huge run and you know you can pull out and pass three cars but nobody goes with you and you are 20th in a second. You have to weigh out how aggressive you want to be, but more importantly how smart you are in those situations.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang — COMPARED TO THE NIGHT RACE HERE IN MAY, HOW DO YOU APPROACH THIS ONE? “Handling will come into play more. How you build your car, there are probably three or four ways to look at it, whether you want handling or drag out of your car. That is a question that is up in the air for a lot of race teams. Probably all of them are asking what we will need when it is race time. It was cool out last time we were here. It was dark. It was a little more obvious the direction you should go. Now, I don’t know. You have to wait and see. As we have come around to these race tracks a second time with this new rules package, there are still questions we have not answered that are still up in the air that you think maybe is the way to go but then you go to another track and you may change your mind before you get back here. It is very confusing right now to kind of wrap your head around what is best.”
I JUST WANT TO CIRCLE BACK TO THE WHOLE GLASSES THING LAST WEEK. WAS IT LIKE A JOKE OR WHAT PRECIPITATED THE WHOLE GLASSES SITUATION? “I think it helps. I can see fine, I am not wearing them right now but I tried on Kyle’s glasses back there because we were in the lounge and I was trying to read the ticker of where everyone was in Xfinity practice and I tried on his glasses and saw that his glasses helped me. I figured I should go to the eye doctor and now I have some glasses. I have that to go with my awesome hairline. It is happening guys, it is happening.”
HOW OFTEN WILL YOU WEAR THEM? WILL YOU WEAR THEM EVERY SUNDAY? “I think I will wear them all the time. I have been wearing them during the week a lot to get used to them. They help me see far away, which I think is a good thing when you are driving a race car. Being able to see little things like debris on the track or your sign on pit road, that seemed to help me last week.”
ARE YOU ABLE TO STOP YOUR MIND FROM RACING AND SLEEP AT NIGHT WHEN THE PLAYOFFS ARE ON THE LINE LIKE THIS WEEK? “I do. I do sleep good. I am able to flip a switch. I am able to turn this thing on and off. I think that is really important to be able to do for your health and be able to do this a long time. If you lived in just racing and that was it, I don’t think you would have a long shelf life. I think you would stress yourself out to the point you wouldn’t want to do it. I think it is important to have a work-life balance. Even though I don’t really consider this a job, it is the coolest job ever, but it is still a job and you have to balance that back and forth. When I got home I am able to just shut off and spend time with my family and try to be the best dad and husband I can possibly be and that helps me go to sleep at night.”
WHEN YOU WON HERE BEFORE IT WAS A DIFFERENT RULES PACKAGE, BUT CAN YOU TAKE AWAY THINGS FROM WHEN YOU WON HERE TO NOW? “Certain things, yes. Not everything. Maybe a third of it or less. I do think that when we brought this new rules package that it changes everything. The way I have to drive the car, what I need to look for, how we set our cars up, the strategy. It changes a little of everything but it is still Kansas. It is still a great track and you look for where the bumps are and the line you can run. That stuff is all there. Not a whole bunch transfers over but a good portion does. It is still worth looking back.”
BEING 18 UP BECAUSE OF THE STAGE POINTS YOU GOT AT TALLADEGA, DO YOU LOOK BACK NOW AND UNDERSTAND WHY ALEX (BOWMAN) DID WHAT HE DID AT THE END OF STAGE 2? “The block? Yeah, I mean.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang — WOULD YOU HAVE DONE THE SAME THING IN HIS POSITION KNOWING YOU COULD HAVE GONE FROM 10 POINTS TO ZERO IN THAT STAGE? “Yeah, he probably would have been shuffled out pretty big right there and he is smart enough to know he was going to be shuffled out and probably go from first until wherever one of the Chevy’s let him in. I don’t know where the next one was at the time, probably not too far back actually. The run I had was so big. I got that push from the 14 and had to go somewhere. I couldn’t lift because then I was possibly going to get crashed. I had to protect myself and he threw the block and I had nowhere else to go. I can’t change direction that quick down the straightaway without losing control of my car and we ran into each other. It is racing. I don’t blame him for the block but the run was unblockable. It was too big. I understand why he did it. I can’t say that I would or wouldn’t without being in his situation in his car.”
WERE THERE MORE UNBLOCKABLE RUNS THAN NORMAL? “Not more than there have been since we have gone to this rules package. This big spoiler has made the runs closer and doesn’t push the car away ahead of you before you get there. With the small spoiler when you were a car length and a half behind them, the lead car was accelerating so much that you never got there. That doesn’t really happen as much to where you blow right through what we call the bubble, right to the back bumper and the car just keeps drafting right up to ‘em. It makes the blocks have to be quicker and they are physical blocks instead of being an aero block and getting the push and moving along and never having to make contact. Now, when you block someone you better be ready for some contact and make sure your car can handle it. They are big hits. Huge hits. Bowyer was behind me and I was thinking that the guy was an animal back there. I didn’t know our bumpers could withstand the impacts our cars were taking. It is what we needed. It was good that my car was strong enough and had the handling to accept those hits. That is what this rules package does on superspeedway racing.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY THIS WEEKEND? “You can control your own destiny by going out there and winning. That would be the best way to do it. That is what you can control. Outside of that, we just have to maximize our day. I have said that since we started when we were out in Vegas. You just have to go out there and get every point possible. Obviously Brad is just a couple points ahead of me and there is going to be a race there and even ahead of him to try to get that spot if you can. You don’t know what is going to happen with those four cars that are outside right now looking in. They are good cars. Those are cars that are capable of winning, especially at a track like this. We need to be smart and aware of that. The best way to do that is to win and don’t worry about any of it. It is definitely in the back of your mind and something you have to think about in the race and you will ask those questions as a driver. You hope they give you the right answers and the things you need to make the smartest move out there.”
ARE YOU EXCITED TO BE A DAD AGAIN? “I am. I am a little nervous and pretty scared. It is quite the adjustment I think. Everyone says that one is one and two is 10. That is really frightening. We were pretty scared when we had Hudson and he is still alive and going, so that is good. I guess we will figure it out. It will be quite the adjustment. We will have to get ready for that over the off-season. We have a big project ahead of us. But we are looking forward to it. It is going to be a lot of fun, probably really hard but a lot of fun too.”
