NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: The Sprint Unlimited

Topics:  The Sprint Unlimited

Joey Logano
February 16, 2013

DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA

KERRY THARP: Thank you, Greg.
We are now joined by our third‑place finisher, Joey Logano.
Joey, talk about your first official race in the new Shell‑Pennzoil banner and driving a Ford, talk about how things went for you tonight.
JOEY LOGANO: Thought it went pretty smooth. This race is a huge race to get a race under our belts. Had a new spotter with Tad up there. For me and Todd, Gordon worked together. A lot of big things come out of this race. I think of this as a pre‑season football game, it's a pre‑season race that we can work some things out. I feel like we did that.
I would kind of second what Greg said, I felt like both our cars were pretty equal and we really wouldn't make the move to go out there and do anything because I didn't feel like our cars were fast enough. There were a select few cars that were very good out there, could do some things.
I did make a move there at the end. I did have enough speed. I went to the bottom and was able to get the third by the time got to the checkered flag. Once I got to the bottom, I knew I didn't have enough speed to get the lead, so I was really hoping they would wreck each other.
Really overall a good way to start. Feel like we have a good list of things we can go over to help our 500 car and I feel like we have some good speed in the car and feel like we can get the pole tomorrow. Got some momentum going.
KERRY THARP: Questions for Joey.

Q. You did get out front for a little bit there. Could you tell any difference at all? You were battling out there with a couple of the guys, not even for a whole lap.
JOEY LOGANO: Never quite got there 'cause the one time I did make a move early in the race, I had a run, joked with momentum, not with my brain. Went to try to make the move and get the lead while everybody was freight training up against the wall. Went for it, almost got there, did not get there, went all the way to the back.
Said, Okay, last time I do that.
I got back to third. That whole second segment, we rode that place. Try to do something here at the end of this thing.
I feel like we did what we can do with the car we had. I feel like we can make some things a lot better with it. We'll work on that. I thought overall our car handled decent. I think some guys were having a handful. We made some adjustments on our car to make it better, but it wasn't really that big of a handful out there.
Just like Greg said, it's hard to get the huge run and enough to make sure you get by everybody was the really tricky part.

Q. Joey, there was a wreck early in testing here that precluded a lot of drafting. There was a wreck yesterday that prevented drafting. There was a wreck early in this race. Do you feel like you've learned a lot about drafting yet?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I could tell in the beginning of the race we started off fairly conservative, kind of running two‑wide. Couldn't make any ground up. Really needed to get three‑wide, make some moves. Everybody was kind of conservative.
Towards the end of the run, everybody's tires were wearing a little bit, everybody got bored I think and wanted to make something happen. You could see it coming. Both Gibbs cars were coming down the center. All right, here we go. I thought it was going to happen in the front straightaway, but it happened in turn one.
It was finding our limit of how close can we get to each other, how hard can we drive these things before we lose control of them. Tonight really is the most grip we're going to have. That was the most we're going to get. It's really cool out. Anything from here, it's just going to keep getting warmer.
Grip is going to go away and handling is going to be more of a factor, which I think is a good thing.
We'll see what happens. I had to catch it a few times. I'm sure a lot of guys did, too.

Q. Joey, your impressions of the car. You were one of the few guys who thought there still might be some tandem. Have you changed your opinion after 75 laps?
JOEY LOGANO: I pushed down the back straightaway a few times, gave guys these huge runs. But I was doing it for different reasons than what I used to do it for. I used to try to stay with them, go to the front. Now I'm trying to shove someone out, trying to move up in the freight train, you know what I mean? Everyone was doing kind of the same thing.
It's just different. I think we have to kind of figure it out. Kind of like Greg said, I didn't feel like my car was quite fast enough to go out and make those moves. So when I got to someone, I could push them instead of trying to make the move.
I thought overall the cars are good. They're cool. They look good. I think they put on a pretty good race. I think there might be some adjustments we may want to make to them to always make it better. You never stop improving. We can always keep working on things like that.
We got what we got and I think we'll put on a good 500 for you.

Q. Talk about maybe having difficulty making moves, yet both the wrecks are guys who seemed to misjudge how fast somebody was coming up next to them. Is there a certain time where people are just getting a really good push or are guys not expecting people to be able to make the move so they think they have time to move?
JOEY LOGANO: I think we're aggressive with the block we know if we get shoved out of line, it's going to be really hard to get back up there. We're going to do everything we can do to protect what we go.
It's really, really close. I think once you kind of get back in the rhythm of it, too, I think it's just, yeah, a product of us racing really close and being really aggressive, protecting what we got, making sure we don't get shuffled out.