NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Sprint All-Star Race

Topics:  Sprint All-Star Race

Joey Logano
Martin Truex, Jr.
May 22, 2010

CONCORD, NORTH CAROLINA

KERRY THARP: We're joined by our race runner-up and our third-place finisher. Our second-place finisher tonight was Martin Truex Jr. Our third-place finisher Joey Logano for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Martin, you raced your way in, finished second. Good night for the 56 team.
MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: It was. To come here, not be in the show, win the open, run well all night, it was a lot of fun for us.
We just fought track position all night. Finally got up there at the end. The closer we got to the front, the better we got. The guys did a good job with the car, adjusting the car from the sunlight of the open, to win that, and then throughout the race tonight. They did a good job. It was a lot of fun. It was fun to let those guys get in there, do their thing.
Just needed a few more laps. I was catching Kurt there at the end. But it was a good day for us.
KERRY THARP: Joey, third-place finish, just your second All-Star Race, talk about it.
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah. Had a good car. Felt that I had a car that was capable of winning actually. We fought loose to start the race. I couldn't get the gas down. Same thing I fought in practice. Man, we got to tighten this thing up so at least I can get the gas down and pass guys. I was too loose on the bottom to clear them.
We did a good job of getting the car close. I felt like the last 10 laps, I had a seven- or eight-lap run maybe. Running down the 48 and the 2. Man, I got a shot at this, I'm just going to run out of time. A caution came out. I'm like, All right.
Tried it. Went into one. I plowed the nose a ton. Went all the way up the racetrack, lost five or six spots. What the heck just happened there? I got lucky, caution came out. To go to last completed lap, Shootout rule. Starting inside front row. All right, I'm not making the same mistake twice. I went in there easy to make sure I didn't do that. Everybody had big momentum on the topside, cleared me. That's it. After that, I was third place.
You know, it stinks. All the guys did a great job. Had awesome pit stops. Kind of the name of the game lately for us. Had good stuff. So we're close, man. It just stinks when you're sitting on the front row with a green-white-checkered, and you feel like you can win this thing, you come up short, it's a tough gig.
KERRY THARP: We'll take questions for Martin or Joey.

Q. Joey, you were apologizing at the start of the last 10-lap thing. You said you didn't feel like it was totally your fault, but you might have caused a little bit of trouble out there. Exactly what did you feel like you did wrong at that point?
JOEY LOGANO: What happened there was, I think it was the 18 in front of the 48. I'm not sure. I think he was spinning his tires. I was getting a run on the 48. You can't cross his bumper until you get across the start/finish line. So I was trying to time my run to get underneath him after that, go three-wide into one.
I started getting underneath, I mean. He started blocking. At that point I started trying to squeeze out of the gas so I didn't get in the grass. I didn't want to do that, because that was going to be a mess. My left sides touched the grass. It made me loose. I chased up the track, checked up a ton. That just caused a big wreck.
It was my fault because I stuck it in there. It was an All-Star Race. There was no give-and-take, which you have to expect with a race like this coming down to the end. At that point in the race, when you're sitting fifth, you need to get some more track position there. That was a quick way I thought I could get a couple spots.
You know, I don't know what I got to do next time. I mean, just wasn't give-and-take there, I guess, on both ends of it.

Q. Joey, did you see the incident on the backstretch between Denny and Kyle? If so, what did you think happened? What do you think this is going to do to the relationship between those two?
JOEY LOGANO: I know nothing (laughter). Actually, I don't know nothing. All I heard was rumors from other people of what's going on. I don't know any more than you guys know.
I know they're cool with me. That's a good thing, I guess. I'm sure they'll work it out, whatever it is. Joe and J.D. have been through situations like this before. Joe especially, with football teams, I'm sure there's controversy. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I'm not worried about it.

Q. Martin, how much stuff are you trying out that you'll use again next week in the 600?
MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: We had a test, that big test here, I guess it was about a month or so ago. We had a really good test here. We learned a lot. That was really our first big test together as a group.
We learned a lot there. A lot of the stuff we learned is things we've been doing the last three or four weeks that have been working for us at the racetrack. So we used everything that we learned here then for here tonight, and I suspect we'll do the same next week because it worked well for us.
We felt good coming into here that we could run well. I feel like our car was a little bit better for the long runs, which will be good for next week. We'll use a lot of what we learned here this weekend or what we used this weekend for the 600.

Q. Did either of you see how Kurt got to the lead that first time? Denny and Kyle were there and then they had their contact. Out of nowhere the 2 car blew through there.
MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: I don't know. They were way up top, both of them. All I seen was the 11 and 18 behind 'em trying to catch 'em. Looked like he run into the wall off of two. I didn't see contact at all. I don't know. New tires, generally you can't make time way up by the wall like that. Kurt was on the bottom. If they got checked up at all, obviously Kyle hit the fence, Denny may have had the lift, I don't know. He had that run around the bottom. He was just going.
JOEY LOGANO: I don't really know. I know that restart, Denny spun his tires in front of me. I was trying to push him, get him along. From there, I don't know what happened.

Q. Martin, how much impact running the Showdown, if you hadn't have been in that, do you feel you would have been chasing it the whole time? Was that a big help?
MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: I don't think it was a big help for us because we had to start in the back. Track position is so important. We did make a few adjustments on our car. They didn't really help it quite as much as we would have liked. We actually kind of had the same problem throughout most of tonight until the last two segments actually. The very last 10-lap deal we got very good. Most of the night we fought the same thing we did in the Showdown.
I wouldn't say it helped us a ton. I think we would have been better off if we were in the big show already and had a little bit better starting spot.

Q. Joey, you mentioned you're learning how to race in the All-Star Race. Obviously it's different when you're running for points. Just how much crazier and wide open is it when you're going for the million bucks as opposed to racing on a normal weekend?
JOEY LOGANO: Quite a bit (laughter). And you know that coming into it. Last year I watched it, it was crazy. The 48, did he spin out by himself? I mean, do you ever see that happen? I mean, well, I don't know. That's how hard everyone is pushing it, you know. Everyone is going that a little bit more. Even by yourself, there's no edge. You're going as hard as you possibly can because it's a million bucks and there's no points.
That cranks it up. I know the last few laps there, I didn't say anything on the radio. Just running everything through my mind, every scenario what can happen, making sure I had everything just right and did everything right. You know, I'm going to beat myself up all night because I feel like I had a shot at it.

Q. Martin, you talked earlier about winning the Showdown in '07, what it did for the season. Now that you've got a second race since you won this Showdown, you finished second, is it too early to tell, you feel coming good coming back for the 600?
MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: We feel good. Like I said, I think we felt good coming in here because of test we had, what we learned. Last few weeks, we seemed to be getting better and better. We thought we were going to be real good coming here, so it wasn't unexpected. It wasn't like we just come out of the blue, won the Showdown. We've been competitive.
But, yeah, I mean, momentum is a big thing in this sport. You see it all the time. It worked for us a couple years ago. It seemed to just give us that confidence in each other and know that we can get it done. Hopefully it will do the same thing.
But time will tell. Looking forward to the 600 next week. I think we'll have a good car. The guys will obviously work on it this week, work on the issues we had today, try to get it better. We'll come back and try to do what we can do. It should be fun.
KERRY THARP: Guys, thanks for putting on a good show tonight. See you next week.
MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: Thank you.
JOEY LOGANO: Thank you.