FORD PERFORMANCE MEDIA AVAILABILITY
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2020
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang, was part of a NASCAR Zoom call this afternoon to talk about this weekend’s Round of 12 elimination race. Logano is currently seventh in the point standings and holds the last transfer position.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang — CAN YOU TALK ABOUT KANSAS? HOW DIFFERENT IS THAT TRACK NOW? “It’s been quite a few years now since it’s kind of widened out. I remember, I guess it was five years ago. I remember Jamie McMurray venturing up to the third groove and that was no-man’s territory at the time, and he went by me like I was sitting still. I was like, “Wow, there’s something going on up there,’ and then we went up there that race and that same race we won, so I remember that kind of being that moment where Kansas widened out. Now, with this rules package we have there, it’s insane because you’re almost wide-open. The leader can be wide-open. If you’re in dirty air, you’re lifting just a little bit. The runs you get off the top side are just crazy, and it makes restarts insane — kind of like Vegas is. It’s a lot like Vegas right now where this rules package just makes it nuts.”
HOW DO YOU RACE SUNDAY? DO YOU RACE BOWMAN OR JUST GO OUT AND NOT WORRY ABOUT IT? “From the looks of the weather we’ve got plenty of stuff to look at, so it’s kind of hard to say. Honestly, you go out there and just try to maximize your points throughout the day. That’s all you can do. If that’s winning the race? Great. If that means you finish 10th and you get a bunch of stage points and that’s what it took to get through? It’s whatever it takes to get through the round, and like we said, 21 points is a mediocre cushion, but being the car that is on the cut line makes you feel not very good about it, and then as we know at the Roval already a lot of crazy things can happen. And then you throw in the high chance of rain coming into it, what that means I have no idea. All I know is there’s not runoff at that racetrack. Most of the time it’s gonna end up in colliding with the wall. Being smart in this race is gonna pay off, but at some point you’re probably gonna have to take some risks to make some passes and do some things like that.”
IF YOU MAKE IT TO THE NEXT ROUND DO YOU FEEL A WIN WILL BE WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE IT TO THE FINAL FOUR? “It sure would help, but, no, I don’t think that’s the case. I think when it resets if we get through the round we’re fourth or fifth or so. I think we’re about fourth, so that puts you in at that point, so, I mean, all it takes is someone beside Denny or Kevin to win and then all of a sudden now it becomes almost a must-win situation because Kevin has so many bonus points and so does Denny that it just seems like if one of them wins, it doesn’t really affect anybody. But if someone outside of that wins that doesn’t have many playoff points, then it really shakes up the whole situation.”
SINCE THIS IS AN ELIMINATION RACE IS IT THE RIGHT THING TO DO TO RACE IN THE RAIN IF THAT SCENARIO PLAYS OUT? “If you’re asking me is it crazy? Yes, it’s crazy. There’s no doubt about that, but it is fair. Everyone has the same opportunity. Everyone has the same opportunity to score a bunch of points leading up to this point. Everyone has the same opportunity to score a bunch of points during a possible rain race at the Roval, although it is something we’ve never done before and it’s outside of a lot of peoples’ boxes. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do in this case and making sure we’re prepared and all that, but it’s not like it’s an unfair advantage for somebody. Maybe someone that has some rain experience might have a bit of an advantage, but that’s because that person put them in a spot to get that experience at some point in their career. So, it’s hard to say it’s not fair. It’s fair, it’s just crazy.”
WHAT IS YOUR RAIN EXPERIENCE? “Minimal. It was 2008 in Montreal. I remember running in that race and then it was a couple years back in Watkins Glen in an Xfinity car. I ran 20 laps in the rain, but that was it, so I would say minimal to say the least. I’d say the guys that have been racing in Xfinity lately have a huge advantage. When you think about how many rain races they’ve had lately, to them they’re probably starting to figure it out and know what to do, but I would say for a majority of the Cup field we’re all clueless. How hard do you drive into the corner? You start sliding and hydroplaning and take off you’re gone. You get into the paint, I assume the paint is gonna be slick, and you’re gonna be going off the racetrack and, like I said, most every corner ends up with a wall at the end of it, where there’s not really much runoff like you see at many other road courses.”
THIS WILL BE THE FIRST CHANCE FOR CHARLOTTE AREA FANS TO SEE NASCAR RACING AGAIN. HOW BENEFICIAL CAN IT BE IN THAT AREA TO COME OUT? “I love it. I want people there. I’ve missed fans. I’ve said this so many times. I’ve missed the fans being there. Some people say, ‘Oh, you’re in a race car. You can’t hear them.’ That’s not the case. It’s pre-race when you’re getting ready. That energy that the fans are able to bring really affects the drivers and also think of the pit crew members. It’s kind of weird. Look at the celebration Kevin Harvick has compared to when there are fans at the racetrack to when there are no fans there. That energy is real. We’ve got to have fans at the racetrack, so I’m excited to have a few of them there.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE A LAP AROUND THE ROVAL? “Turn one you’ve got a pretty sharp left-hander. You’ve seen a lot of carnage in that corner — a lot of cars wheel-hop into that corner. A lot of times it’s because the main part of the racetrack has less grip than the infield, so you kind of overestimate the grip level there, and then you go down the chute from one to two. It’s pretty tight walls on both sides, which makes restarts crazy. Turn three has no banking into the corner, so the car is wanting to spin out. That’s another place you see a lot of cars crash, and then you have turn four down into turn five, which is a double right-hander, just rolling forever. That whole infield of the Roval you’re only wide-open between four and five. Everything else you’re pedaling it all the way through there to where you’re not really getting more than three-quarter throttle. It’s just about turning through the corners and then you get from turn eight back onto the racetrack. I call it the racetrack. I don’t know what to call it, the oval, whatever you want to call it. You start getting some speed and you’ve got this chicane on the backstretch, where it’s heavy, heavy braking trying to work yourself through that. It’s a good passing zone, but it’s also really tight, and then you’re back up onto the racetrack through NASCAR three and four, which I don’t even know the numbers of this place. That’s where I get kind of lost. For some reason there’s like 20 turns or something, but that’s what I call it at least. Then you’re on there and you’ve got another big braking zone with a lot of lateral in it because you’re in the corner still while you’re braking and makes it easy to lock up the tire, and then you’ve got that final chicane, which leads you back onto the frontstretch. So it’s very technical. Quite a bit of shifting once you get onto the big track and some heavy braking areas.”
WHAT DO YOU DO IF THE RAIN TIRES COME OUT? “I called Austin Cindric this morning to ask him plenty of questions. I said, ‘Dude, tell me the insight. What do you do? What do you look for? How does it drive the car? When do you change rain tires? Do rain tires wear out? I don’t know. Do they wear out when it’s raining? When it dries out I know they come apart pretty quick, but at what point do you go from wets to dries if it stops raining? At what point, and the question is too for everyone right now with NASCAR is, ‘At what point is it too much rain?’ Is standing water or running water across the racetrack where you can hydroplane what is the line? What is the drainage like at that racetrack through the infield road course. I don’t know. I’ve never really looked around when it was pouring rain to see how that road course drains, so there are so many questions that we have no answers to. We just have to expect the unexpected at this point.”
IF YOU GET THROUGH THE ROVAL, HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU WITH THE LAST FOUR TRACKS THAT YOU CAN COMPETE FOR THE TITLE? “I feel like we’ve got a good shot. They’re all good racetrack for us. Kansas and Texas may be the ones that stick out a little bit more as the bigger challenges, but I feel like earlier in the year we’ve ran good at both of those. We may not have had the best finishes, but we’ve had things that went wrong, but we had speed in the car, so I feel comfortable at those races. Martinsville is probably where I feel the most confident that Team Penske can go out there and grab a win, so hopefully that car is us. We’ll have to kind of wait and see. Phoenix, we obviously feel good about. We won there in the spring. We had a very good race car and we can go back with something even better, so I feel great if we can get there. We’ve got to get through this round first. It’s one week at at a time. If we get through this round, take a deep breath, regroup and then we’ll have to attack hard to try to either score enough points to make it happen or get that win that we need.”
HAVE YOU HAD TIME TO REFLECT ON THE YELLOW LINE RULE AFTER TALLADEGA AND ARE THERE ANY CHANGES YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN REGARDS TO THAT? “Honestly, it was last week so I’m trying to move forward because I’ve got a little bit more on my plate than worrying about what happened last week, but I do think the rule is necessary. I want the officiating to be consistent. I’m not saying that’s between me and the other drivers or whoever, I’m just saying from race to race needs to be consistent and not something that just pops up out of nowhere. That’s the most important part I think everybody wants, whether it’s that or you look at the blend line rules that all of a sudden started getting enforced a few weeks ago, I think at maybe Texas. You hadn’t seen a call like that for years and then all of a sudden it pops up three times in a race and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, what happened?’ It’s not like all the drivers got together and said, ‘Hey, you know what? We’re gonna blend a little early today and see what happens.’ We didn’t do that. Contending with the double yellow line rule last week, there was some calls that were pretty clear. I’d say I ran the 21 below the yellow line. I totally, definitely did and I should get that penalty. The one with the 9 I would say is questionable and wouldn’t be called in the past. All I’m saying is be consistent with it. If that’s what the rule is, make it like that every time and I’m fine with it.”
WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN FROM AUSTIN CINDRIC IN REGARDS TO HIS PROGRESS AND CUP READINESS? “I’d say he’s improved a lot. I think we all know he’s a good road course racer. That’s his background. Before he started NASCAR racing he did all the road course stuff, so that’s his background and that’s what he knows most about. That’s why I asked him all these questions, and I felt like he always calls me and asks me a bunch of questions, especially the first time he’s gone to racetracks, so I felt like it was time for me to call him and ask him some questions. But, I tell you what, if you look at his improvement outside of the road courses. Like I said, you know he’s good, but you look at the ovals from where he was a couple years ago to where he is today, the improvement has been drastic. I mean, it’s been big, so I think he works really hard at it just watching the way he prepares, the way he communicates with his team and his crew chief. He’s working hard and I think that’s what I respect most about Austin is that he’s not just taking an opportunity and showing up at the racetrack, putting a helmet on and driving the car. He knows that’s not what it’s gonna take. I think he learns a lot of that from his old man. I think Tim has helped him a lot with showing what effort really is and how good these drivers really are at this level and he’s come a long, long ways, particularly on restarts. If I looked at one piece that he’s gained the most on has been restarts. Where he was pretty weak in that department now I’d say he’s pretty strong.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE TIMING OF IT? “The timing of the Next Gen car makes a lot of sense, instead of trying to figure out how to drive these things and then jumping out into something completely different. Going through two years of a learning curve, you might as well jump in with everybody when they’re all going through a learning curve together, so that makes sense. And, honestly, from somebody that just jumped into the Cup Series way too young and not enough experience, I’ve got to say it’s a smart move to do it the way he’s doing it, and knowing that it’s coming a year down the road. Good for him. That’s kind of nice that you know you can focus in on trying to win another Xfinity championship and going for that and focusing on that, and getting ready for the Next Gen cars that are gonna be completely different than what we’re driving right now. To me, the plan makes sense to do that. I think we all kind of know that he’s being groomed to jump into a Cup car at some point, and, like I said, with the progress he’s making he’s putting himself in that position. If he didn’t keep getting better, he wouldn’t be talked about in this situation at all.”
YOU HAVE TESTED THE NEXT GEN CAR. HOW WILL IT BE DIFFERENT? “Some of the things that you look at for this car, what do we want to be better, right? When I was in the meetings the first thing I brought up was durability. You want cars to be able to bounce off the wall, bounce off each other and not worry about cutting tires down or knocking fenders in or killing so much speed in their car. Our sport was built on close contact type racing. That’s what stock car racing is and our cars today, you can do that to a certain point, but you flatten out the side of your car, you’re gonna give up a ton of performance and you’re risking getting flat tires. You look at the Xfinity cars. They hit everything and they keep on going. It’s crazy. I watch those guys drive those things and I’m like, ‘There ain’t no way in heck you can do that in one of our cars and expect to even run close to the front.’ But they take advantage of the opportunity that’s there with those cars and they run ultra aggressive because they know they have a little bit of cushion there that they can hit the wall and it doesn’t hurt their day. That’s what we kind of want. I think that’s something that’s important with the cars. You talk about the financial piece and the efficiencies you can gain with it, but I think that and then also another piece that’s important to me is just kind of dirty air, behind cars, things like that. Even on short tracks we’ve got to make sure that we make gains in that department. There’s always gonna be clean air versus dirty air. You can never fix that completely because it’s just physics, but I think we can improve it a little bit from where we’re at.”
