Joey Logano Dishes on Dover, His Season, Boys Have at It, Turning 21 and Farmville
From his most eventful Nationwide race that featured everything from rain delays to a late race crash that sent him from second to thirteenth in the final green-white-checkered attempt, Joey Logano always seems to have a most eventful time at Dover International Speedway.
Here are just a few of the musings from the driver of the JGR No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry on everything from racing the Monster Mile to playing his favorite game, Farmville.
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[/media-credit]“This is my favorite race track,” Logano said of Dover International Speedway. “We did roll over there a few years back but this is where I started my first Nationwide race.”
“I’ve always run good here,” Logano continued. “I’ve always had fast cars and I like the place.”
“I have no reason to not like it,” Logano said. “It’s not the track’s fault that I rolled over. You always remember it, but it’s no big deal.”
While he enjoys Dover, Logano acknowledges that he has not enjoyed the struggles his team has experienced so far this season. In fact, he would give himself a ‘C’ so far if he had to assign a letter grade for his performance.
“It’s a passing grade,” Logano said. “But it’s not a stellar one.”
“This season has not been so hot,” Logano said. “We’re not where we want to be in points or where we thought we would be.”
“From the beginning part of the year, we had fast cars but everything you could ever imagine has gone wrong,” Logano continued. “Now our cars are not as fast as what they were, so we’re trying to figure out what we need to do to get them where we need to be.”
Logano believes that most of his struggles, as well as his team’s, have been as a result of not fully understanding the tires this year.
“The big thing is really the tires this year,” Logano said. “It suits some guys driving styles better than others.”
“I think it plays right into Kyle’s (Busch) hands the ways he drives the race car,” Logano continued. “But for me and Denny (Hamlin), we’ve had to do a lot of different stuff to try to make a go of it.”
Although struggling with the tires, Logano has taken some solace, and even finding some amusement, in the ‘boys have at it’ controversies currently surrounding the sport.
“Lucky for me, I don’t have any problems yet so far, but last year I had plenty,” Logano said. “I just think it’s funny that all of them are fighting each other now.”
“I’m just standing here watching,” Logano continued. “It’s pretty funny and really cool when you get to watch them all fighting and you’re not involved with it.”
“I like it,” Logano said, with his trademark grin. “It’s very entertaining.”
Logano grew more philosophical, however, when talking about the balance between standing up for yourself and crossing that ‘boys have at it’ line.
“That’s a hard question to answer,” Logano said. “Every situation is different.”
“But if it happens over and over, you’ve got to do something different,” Logano continued. “You talk to them first and if not, I don’t know, then if you’ve got to wreck them, you’ve got to wreck them.”
Unlike Jeff Gordon, who in the media center said that he never made or took a call from a driver with whom he had had issues and did not want anyone to call him, Logano definitely thinks a call is warranted.
“Every time I’ve had an issue that’s my fault, I’ll call,” Logano said. “I feel like people should call me if something happens or at least talk to me if it’s before practice or before the next race.”
“Just talk to me, Logano continued. “That’s just how I feel about it. It may or may not settle the waters but at least you’ve talked.”
While continuing to enjoy the fracas around him, Logano is also looking forward to several other events coming up on his horizon. One of those events is personal as Logano will also turn 21 years of age in the next few weeks, a major milestone for anyone.
What has the young man planned for his special day?
“I won’t do anything,” Logano said. “I hate going out.”
“I’ll probably grill out at my house with a group of friends,” Logano continued.”We’ll probably play ping pong, or other games. My house is full of games like that. I enjoy that.”
After his birthday celebration, Logano has another date circled on his calendar, that of the Prelude to the Dream race at Eldora Speedway.
“It’s cool,” Logano said of the Prelude race. “We’ve done it the past two years. It’s interesting because it’s completely different.”
“I’ve never, ever been on dirt,” Logano continued. “It’s not what I grew up doing. The way you drive your car is backwards.”
“When you’re naturally doing something, you have to tell yourself not to do it,” Logano said. “It’s weird until you get used to it.”
One of the other weird factoids about Joey Logano is one that many fans may find surprising.
“I play the hell out of Farmville,” Logano said, sharing one of his most surprising features. “That and the fact that I really do smile that much.”
Elliott Sadler Finally Where He Wants to Be: The Nationwide Series Point Lead
It took longer than he thought but Elliott Sadler is finally the point leader in the Nationwide Series. It’s a “finally” moment for many who have been waiting for Sadler to show up on the scene after a slow start led many to start looking elsewhere for contenders.
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[/media-credit]Here’s Sadler though, momentarily back on top in a sport he’s experienced all the highs and lows in. Following a 12-year career in the Sprint Cup Series racing for teams like the Wood Brothers, whom he won his first race with, to Richard Petty Motorsports Sadler, knew he needed to make a change. No longer having fun nor competitive, he ran select races for Kevin Harvick Inc. last season where he became rejuvenated. It led to a full-time ride and with NASCAR changing how points were going to be awarded, Sadler jumped to the top of the list as potential breakouts in 2011.
But following a wreck in the season opening DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona, Sadler was already in a deep hole. The OneMain Financial team went to work and starting stringing together top 10 finishes. By Darlington last weekend they had climbed to second behind Justin Allgaier, five points out of the lead.
At Dover, Sadler and his team would have to again scratch and claw their way back to the top. After starting eighth their day was almost done when they were handed a speeding penalty. At the same time the race was red flagged and had it been called, Sadler would have finished outside the top 15.
Fortunately, the sky cleared and with less than 55 laps to go Sadler got to work moving through the field, determined not to cost his team another good finish. He was sitting ninth coming off turn four to the white flag when all hell broke loose in front of him.
“I’m not sure what happened, I looked up and the 60 and the 20 looked liked they got together,” Sadler said afterwards. “Not sure how that all happened, we were just able to make it through the wreck by staying to the high side of it. It’s a self cleaning race track so we just stayed up high and made it though.”
What happened was scary. Joey Logano got loose and hit the wall and when he came back across the racetrack collected Clint Bowyer who went up onto his side and hit the inside wall. In the process others started to pile on behind.
Carl Edwards went to victory lane and with mayhem all around him Sadler would be able to skirt by for a sixth place finish.
“I made a mistake on pit road and got a speeding penalty right before the rain so I’m glad we were able to get back to racing because that helped us out a lot to race our way back up to sixth,” said Sadler.
With Allgaier having his own troubles and wrecking early in the race, Sadler’s finish made him the point leader by 10 markers over Reed Sorenson. It is the first time that he has led all season.
“I think I led in 1998 too,” Sadler joked. “First time in a long time. That’s our goal, to lead the points and be competitive and consistent so we feel like we’re in a pretty good spot right now. Daytona we started ourselves out in a hole and we’ve worked ourselves back up to where we want to be. Really good consistent runs.”
In Sadler’s words he has a really strong race team and one that he has confidence in. Now with the point lead in hand he’s eager to see what they can do with as they “keep after it” each week. In doing so, those who were looking for a championship favorite finally have. He was just late to the party.
