Auto Club 400 Preview

Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway (two-mile superspeedway, Fontana, Calif.)

No. 22 Auto Club of Southern California Ford Fusion driven by Joey Logano

Sunday, March 23, 3:00 pm ET

• READY TO BOUNCE BACK: Despite the final results showing a 20th-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway last weekend, Joey Logano and the No. 22 Ford team know their performance heavily outweighed the results. Logano led laps early, but experienced power steering problems just over a quarter of the way through the event. After fixing the problems behind the wall and falling three laps off the pace to 42nd place, the team rallied and was able to earn a top-20 finish and keep themselves sixth in the standings, just 22 points behind leader and teammate Brad Keselowski.
• STILL LEADING LAPS: Logano paced the field for 12 laps in Bristol, bringing his season total to 129 laps led. Logano has been at the front of the field in each of the four races run this season (plus the non-points Sprint Unlimited). It marks the first time he’s ever led laps in four straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events.
• CAR GUY MEETING A CAR GUY: While on the West Coast on Thursday, Logano – an avid car buff – will get a chance to meet another car guy, former Tonight Show host and stand-up comic Jay Leno. Logano will visit Jay Leno’s Garage in Burbank, Calif. and get a tour of Leno’s automobile collection. The two will also tape a segment talking about the No. 22 Ford Fusion that will air online at www.jaylenosgarage.com.
• BRACKET BUSTER: While Logano knows quite a bit about racing, he’s challenging his fans to test his knowledge of college basketball. Logano will fill out an NCAA tournament bracket and invite his fans to compete against him in the ESPN Tournament Challenge. More info can be found via www.joeylogano.com.
• QUALIFYING UP FRONT: In the three “knockout qualifying” sessions that have been run this season, Logano has started an impressive second, first and fourth. Out of the seven “individual sessions” that have been run in qualifying this season (two at Bristol, three at Las Vegas and two at Phoenix), Logano has led on four occasions (first session in Phoenix, second and third sessions in Las Vegas and the first session in Bristol).

LAST YEAR’S RACE AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY WAS ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR. DO YOU THINK THIS YEAR’S WILL BE MUCH OF THE SAME?

“It will be hard to tell with the new rules package that we have. I think we are going to have to see how it plays out. It could be a lot like Vegas, but you also have a lot more room to move around in California. I am sure the key, like on a lot of these tracks, will be being out front and having clean air. But last year we did put on a pretty good show there. There was a lot of passing and back and forth action. We had a shot to win there last year and just missed out on it by a little bit. I’d like to go out there and win this weekend. I feel like our two-mile program is really strong and has been here at Team Penske. Hopefully, we can keep it up on Sunday.”

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR SECRET TO QUALIFYING UP FRONT?

“There is no secret really. I think Team Penske has just been building really fast cars this year and that shows on Fridays in qualifying. I don’t think we are doing anything different than the rest of the field in qualifying. We just try to get a great setup in the car, go out there and bust off a good lap and regroup for the second round and the third round. I just think the guys have been working extra hard and that shows. Then, it shows on Sunday because it’s really important to start up front each and every week.”