Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Media Day | Tuesday, February 9, 2021
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT THAT YOU RACED ON DIRT LAST WEEKEND? WOULD YOU HAVE DONE THAT IF BRISTOL WASN’T ADDING DIRT? “Probably not. It probably wouldn’t have been something that I was going to do. It was a lot of fun. I’m glad I did it either way, but trying to convince the boss man to go play around in something, this one helped a little bit to go play in this dirt car a little bit. I feel like I’m a better race car driver now than I was a couple days ago before I went to Volusia as far as being a dirt racer. It’s funny, you go out there and I was clueless. I was a dart without feathers, mainly because the rear end of those cars move so much and they say keep it up on the bars. You need to keep that left-rear driven up so forward and you do that by keeping your foot on the gas. That’s easy when you’re by yourself, but then where there were 20 cars around me I was all over the place. I was just trying to figure it out. All the drivers there were very welcoming and had plenty of advice to give me, which was great. All of their advice was different though, which was very confusing because there are apparently 10 different ways to drive a dirt car and still go fast. It was fun listening to everybody and getting to figure it out as I went along, and I’m looking forward to doing it some more because I had a good time doing it. It was cool. We showed up with a little trailer and rolled the car out and just kind of winged it. Apparently, that’s a big race for these guys, so it was a fun way to try and get out there and see where you stack up against the big dogs.”
DO YOU HAVE A NEW RESPECT FOR WHAT THEY DO AND IS IT IMPORTANT FOR NASCAR DRIVERS TO GO OUT AND DO OTHER THINGS LIKE THAT WITH GRASSROOTS RACING? “Looking back at it, yes. I don’t think I realized how sometimes different the dirt fans are compared to a NASCAR fan. I kind of thought they were two of the same. That’s what I thought, but I will say it’s a different demographic than what we have and there are diehard dirt fans and they love it. I think the more we can crossover, NASCAR drivers, to race on dirt or vice versa even, I think it kind of blends those two together because it should be one. I feel like a motorsports fan should be a motorsports fan and love every type if it, and I kind of thought dirt racing fans were NASCAR fans and I don’t think that’s quite the case in all of them – probably in half – so I thought that kind of helped along with that. It’s funny, when I went out for kind of like the pre-race thing, I went out on the stage and there was zero reaction. I couldn’t believe it. Zero reaction. And then after the race, we finished third, and they’re cheering and laughing and joking. I’m talking and there was a reaction then, so there’s definitely something that’s not connecting as good as we need to. I think, to your point, the more we race on those things and show that we’re all race car drivers, we all love driving cars it’s just different types, we’ll help kind of cross that bridge.”
WAS YOUR DIRT MODIFIED EXPERIENCE WHAT YOU EXPECTED IT TO BE? “I can tell you one thing, driving a dirt modified is basically take everything you’ve learned about driving a race car on asphalt and throw that right out the window. It doesn’t mean anything. It actually hurts you, so just a different type of racing. The way you drive the car, everything you do is quite a bit different. I can see how it’s very hard to transfer back and forth, whether if you grew up on dirt trying to switch over to asphalt that’s a tough change and a tough thing to do. The same thing if you go the other way, for me the asphalt guy going on dirt. I went out there and practiced and it looked like I never drove a car before, but eventually I think talent is talent and race car drivers are race car drivers and you figure it out. Over time I think you can transfer back and forth, I think it just takes a little bit of time to figure it out. Just like if I was to jump in an Indy Car it would take a while for me to figure out, but I would figure it out. Same thing for dirt racers jumping over to asphalt or vice versa, it just takes a minute but a race car driver is a race car driver and they’ll figure it out. It’s just that everyone has their specialty and what they focus on and they become really good at that.”
HOW WILL THE DYNAMIC BE DIFFERENT IN TONIGHT’S CLASH ON THE ROAD COURSE AS OPPOSED TO THE OVAL? “The intensity will be just like the Clash every year. Just because it’s on a road course doesn’t really change that. I think the intensity is gonna be up there. It’s an All-Star Race. There’s nothing to lose, so everyone is gonna be racing aggressively. I think when you see those braking zones if it’s a point race, maybe they come back and try not to have any contact and get any damage or whatever But in the All-Star type events, where there’s really nothing to lose, I think you’re gonna see cars sending it into those braking zones, locking tires up and maybe beating doors off each other when they get to the corner. There’s plenty of opportunity for that on this race track. There’s four, maybe five spots you can try to out-brake somebody and each one kind of presents its own risk that’s there. I plan on being very aggressive tonight to try to find those edges, know where those are in an All-Star Race knowing that we’re going back there in a couple weeks.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET OFF TO A GOOD START AND WIN EARLY? “I think these days you’ve got to be good all year long. There’s the opportunity that you can get through the playoffs even if you don’t have many playoff points, but you don’t leave yourself any cushion to fall back on if you don’t run well. So, it seems like, yeah, you’re right, last year we went through quite the rollercoaster. It was really good and then it went really bad, and then it came back and we raced for a championship in Phoenix. It can go up and down, but it’s nice if you have a lot of points as you go through those playoffs. You sleep a lot easier and things like that. It’s just like it is for football, you want to try and seed yourself the best you can and it’s the same thing for us in NASCAR. It’s nice to get a win early. Maybe it makes you sleep a little better, but you just can’t get a win and go check out for two or three months and then come back when the playoffs start. You just can’t do that. It doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have ups and downs throughout it, you probably will, but making sure you’re good when it matters the most is key.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE IN A RACE THAT IS WAY MORE THAN A WILDCARD. IT’S ALMOST LIKE A LOTTERY TO WIN THESE THINGS AND FINISH. “Yeah, that part is frustrating. If I’m being 100 percent honest it’s frustrating, but it is what it is. These big spoilers is what’s changed that, where we used to have more of a bubble behind us. You can block cars and actually be able to block them and keep moving forward without checking up a whole line or getting hit from behind and getting your car out of shape, so that’s what’s caused more crashes. But there’s still an art to it. I don’t call it a lottery in my mind because I don’t like thinking of things about luck. I like to think that I can control a lot of it, a lot of that by hopefully staying in the front. I will say that I’ve wrecked out of the lead quite a few times or in the top three or four cars quite a few times, not just in the 500 but just in superspeedway racing in general, but I’d rather be up there racing rather than ride around all day and still crash. At least I can say I did something and learned a little bit and maybe had a little fun while doing it. That’s where my head is at with it. It being the Daytona 500 you know how it’s gonna end. You know, and it’s happened for years now, everyone knows what it is, everyone knows it’s the biggest race of the year, everyone knows what comes along with winning the Daytona 500 and having your name on that trophy with all the legends, everyone knows what that’s about. So because of that everybody ends up being ultra-aggressive, throwing aggressive blocks, bumping each other very hard and the next thing you know cars are going sideways going across the field and, yeah, that’s gonna happen again – no doubt. It will happen again.”
GOING BACK A DECADE WHEN YOU WORKED WITH MAX PAPIS, DO YOU HAVE ANY STORIES TO SHARE AND HOW VALUABLE WAS HE TO YOUR CAREER? “I love Max. Great guy. Very good race car driver. Good coach. He’s obviously done a lot with William here lately in a similar way for me. Max is an authentic person, and I think that’s what I love about him the most. What you see is what you get. He’s gonna tell you how it is and he’s not gonna sugarcoat anything for you, so I appreciate that about him. He’s got a great family. I’ve learned a lot, obviously on road courses with him, but he also worked with me a lot on ovals more from a mental preparation side, which I thought was some interesting points of view. Anyone that’s raced for a long time and been in a lot of different situations, a lot of experience comes along with that, a lot of knowledge comes with that, so the more you can pick someone’s brain like that is definitely helpful. I remember, probably the thing that stands out the most, we had a two-seater Cup car back when we were able to test, and we were at Road Atlanta. I was driving and he was riding with me and I was braking at this point, and then we switched seats and I rode with him, which is the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. He broke probably, I don’t know, 50 yards deeper than me and it scared me. I thought we were crashing, but it kind of opened up your eyes of where it can be, so that was probably what stands out the most because I was scared of my life at that moment.”
HOW VALUABLE IS IT TO HAVE HIM AS A SAFETY ADVOCATE IN THE SPORT? “I think he’s someone who sees opportunity and goes after it, and when you see where technology was in steering wheels, it’s something that maybe we don’t think about much. ‘Hey, give me the steering wheel. Let me steer the car.’ Whatever. But there is so much more to that, not only from a weight perspective, but also a safety perspective. You’re kind of wanting that to bend and get out of your way a little bit. It’s something that I don’t think many people looked into and he saw that as a great opportunity. You look at the brand he’s build now. It’s not just race cars, it’s in hot rods and I got a little steering wheel in my son’s power wheels now – I put a little one in there – so he’s kind of touched on everything with that.”
TJ MAJORS SAID YOU GUYS ALWAYS GET TOGETHER AND TALK BEFORE SPEEDWAY RACES. HAVE YOU DONE THAT YET AND, IF SO, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING OUT FOR GOING INTO SUNDAY? “I think every time you kind of re-watch a race you see something. The more eyes you have together and talk things out, he may pull something out that I didn’t see or vice versa and it just helps to be on the same page. That’s kind of the biggest thing. The spotter means a lot, especially on superspeedways, but really everywhere now the spotter means a lot and the more that he is thinking the same way that I am and vice versa, that is kind of what puts us on the same page and I think makes us a strong pair. So, the more we can be together and obviously the more we race together is important. This weekend, it being the first race back is always you want to get back out there and knock the rust off a little bit and try to see the way the draft is working, the way it’s moving. We won’t really have an idea of what that is until the Duels, but just trying to understand how that’s gonna be and how he communicates that it’s a constant flow of just trying to figure out what that is. It always changes. The draft never stays the same. It evolves every time we’re out there. Every driver is learning something every time he runs a racetrack. Like I said earlier, what worked last year doesn’t work this year because you have to keep moving along with it. You look at sometimes the draft ends up single-file against the wall, sometimes it’s single-file on the bottom. It’s just how teams are working together, how alliances change and what people see successful, so you have to constantly be studying what that is.”
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF TIME DO YOU SPEND LOOKING IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR IN SPEEDWAY RACES? “If you’re in the lead, it’s probably 90 percent. If you’re even middle of the pack, you’re probably at least 50/50, still probably more in the mirror than ahead. What goes on behind you dictates what you’re gonna do, so you have to be a mirror driver. That’s what had me so screwed up in this dirt car this week. I had no idea where anybody was. There’s no mirrors in that thing and I’m a mirror driving guy. That’s what I do, so when you took that tool away from me I didn’t know what to do.”
KNOWING THAT A CRASH IS INEVITABLE DOES THAT HELP TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF YOU IN A WAY FOR THE 500? “Not really. I don’t look at it that way. I will say I don’t typically get mad when I do crash on a superspeedway because in a way I’m asking for it to a certain extent because I’m up there racing. There are teams and drivers that will run in the back all day long and they might get a better finish than me. They’re gonna finish top 10 most likely if you ride around all day – probably not gonna win. I’m the guy, I just want to win, so I’m gonna go out there and race and because of that I probably have less than a 50 percent chance of finishing the race, but it doesn’t really take pressure off. If it happens, it happens and I move on. It’s all we can do. It’s like, ‘Well, he got caught up in it.’ That’s life. Move onto the next one. Take what you can from it and learn and get better for next time.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THE CHANGES IN NASCAR WILL AFFECT THE ENERGY AND EXCITEMENT FOR THE DRIVERS AND THE FANS? “There’s plenty of new things, even without the NEXT Gen car here for this season there’s plenty of changes that should keep people plenty excited and interested on what’s gonna be. You think of all these new racetracks, the road courses, Nashville, Bristol Dirt, boy, we’ve thrown a lot of different things at it this year. I’m interested, I know that, to kind of see how things go, and then there’s still the roots of our sport that we also kept, which is key and having that blend. I think this year, more than ever, you have to be a well-rounded race car driver. You have to be able to be a great road racer. You have to be good on superspeedway, there’s still four of those. There’s still mile-and-a-halves and short tracks, but even a dirt racer now. So, you have to be well-rounded and, for me, as a race car driver that’s a fun challenge. It’s very attractive for me to want to race in NASCAR because you don’t do the same thing every week. Think about it, there’s not many series at all that race that many different disciplines, and that, to me, is fun because at the end of the day I can say maybe I can jump in anything and go fast. I want to be able to do that and this kind of helps that. As a driver, that’s exciting. As a fan, thinking about all the what-ifs, that would be exciting, too.”
WHICH TRACK DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THE MOST? “I think there are a few. You look at the Nashville market and hitting on that. I think that will be very interesting and fun for all of us in the industry to go towards that area. You look at what the banquet was like there and it was a lot of fun, and you look at the fans when we did the burnout competition there down on Broadway, that was cool. I like to think that area is gonna be really cool. Obviously, COTA, Road America all seem neat. The dirt race, I think, is the one that everyone has the biggest question mark on. Some of us are excited and other of us are going, ‘Why?’ I’m probably on both sides of the fence on that one because personally Bristol is my favorite racetrack. I don’t think there’s any reason we have to throw dirt on it to make it better. It was perfect the way it was, but, at the same time, there’s the other 50 percent of me that’s saying, ‘This is gonna be really cool. Let’s see what happens here.’ At the same time there’s another part of me saying, ‘We’re spending so much time on trying to figure out how to make these cars go on dirt for one race,’ because next year we have new cars, so we’re spending so much time and money on that that it almost doesn’t make sense. So, I’m really conflicted on that. I don’t really know how to think on that one, but it’ll probably be one of the most tuned in races all year long.”
WOULD YOU RATHER SEE A CUP RACE ON A NATURAL DIRT TRACK? “I would say yes. I’d rather it be two Bristol concrete races and go find a dirt track that has the infrastructure for us that we can go out there and put on a great race for our fans.”
ANY THOUGHT WE COULD SEE YOU IN A SUPER DIRT CAR BIG BLOCK MODIFIED IN THE FUTURE? “I have no clue. To be honest with you, I didn’t know there were two different types of modifieds before I showed up to Volusia. That’s how clueless I was. My friend, Ryan Flores, who built the car with my car chief, Jerry Kelley, and that’s when I was like, ‘I need to go learn how to drive on dirt. Where can we go?’ So, we went down to Volusia. I feel like that car is probably gonna be the closest thing to driving a Cup car, just from the power in the car, the width of the tires so small is kind of the grip level. Obviously, there are a lot of differences with the car itself with it being lighter and movement in the rear end makes it very different, but I feel like that will be something that will at least be semi-close to what the Cup cars will be. That’s why I chose that.”
WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT DATA FOR TEAM PENSKE TO GET OUT OF THIS RACE TONIGIHT? “There’s a lot of different things. I think, for one, you look at where the 9 car is. He’s been the dominant car on the road courses. He’s the one that we’re all shooting to go after. We don’t have practice anymore, really, especially at this racetrack, so if there’s ever a time you’re gonna go try something and risk it, and whether you’re a driver and try something different or the way you set up your car, now is the time. Now is the time to throw it all out there and see if you can make something stick, and then hopefully be better for next week.”
CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW IMPORTANT EACH ASPECT OF THE RACE IS ALL YEAR, DOING WELL IN STAGES AND THE END OF THE RACE? “To me the way I look at, and this might hurt me as much as it helps me at times, is every point could be the difference of winning the championship, and that can be in the middle of the summer at some racetrack that someone may not think much of, but that one point, to me, could be the difference of finishing first and second in the regular season. That could be five playoff points difference and it could be the difference between finishing third and fourth in the regular season. That’s one playoff point. Well, that one playoff point could be the difference of you getting to the next round or getting to the championship round. It could be the whole championship, so every point means so much. That’s why you see me racing so hard. I feel like that can be the difference of our team getting to the championship round or not, and so for those reasons I’m gonna race hard. Now, at the same time that might bite me in some ways, but that’s the way I race. That’s my mindset and it will continue to be that way.”
GIVEN HOW MUCH LUCK FACTORS INTO MAKING THE PLAYOFFS OR THE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PLAYOFF FORMAT IN NASCAR TO DETERMINE A CHAMPION? “I don’t feel like it’s luck. That’s my opinion. You’ve got to be good when it matters the most. To me, there’s no such thing as luck. Roger Penske says it’s the best, ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’ That’s just what it is. You’ve got to be good when it matters the most and that’s what playoff sports are about. Look at what just happened in the Super Bowl. During the mid-part of the season you wouldn’t think Tampa Bay was gonna be winning the Super Bowl this year and they were the best when it mattered the most and they worked their way through the playoffs and won the whole thing, so it can happen here. Does it help to have a great regular season? Yeah, it helps with your seeding. It helps with your playoff points. At the same time, you’ve got to be great when it matters the most and that’s during the playoffs and each round gets harder and harder to get through. You have to do different things to do it, so, no. Do I think it’s luck? Absolutely not.”
HOW MUCH DOES THE CHANCE OF BEING A MULTIPLE DAYTONA 500 WINNER MOTIVATE YOU? “You always want as many as you can get. It’s nice to say you’ve got one, better to say you have two. I’m motivated no matter what. I guess I don’t need that to be motivated more. I have plenty just knowing there’s a race and a trophy ahead of me. I honestly can’t say I’m more motivated to win the Daytona 500 than I am of winning at Kansas or wherever it may be. It’s pretty much the same for me every week. I keep that kind of same intensity level and the same preparation for every race no matter what it is, so I don’t really look at it as anything different than the next week.”
