theracereview

  • Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion team qualified second for Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kentucky Speedway. It marked the fourth time this year Logano has qualified second and the fifth time he’s started on the front row.
  • After the green flag waved, it was obvious that Logano and teammate Brad Keselowski would be two of the best cars all night long as Logano settled into second place, putting several seconds between the Shell-Pennzoil Ford and the third-place car.
  • Over the course of the first 215 laps, Logano ran no lower than third place and for the majority of the time he ran second behind Keselowski.
  • The Shell-Pennzoil team had phenomenal pit stops all evening long, getting Logano out of the pits first on several occasions and giving the 24-year-old, who was celebrating his 200th-career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start in Kentucky, the race lead.
  • Logano was able to lead the race on five different occasions for 37 laps. Between Logano and Keselowski, the Team Penske cars led 236 of the 267 laps in the event.
  • With several different pit strategies playing out through the field late in the race, Logano found himself restarting 10th with 50 laps to go. On the restart, Logano showed the strength of his Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion, racing from 10th to fourth in just three laps.
  • Logano was closing in on the third–place car of Ryan Newman when he radioed in that his engine had dropped a cylinder on lap 240.
  • Over the remaining 27 laps, Logano did his best to hold on to the track position he and the team had earned. Despite his best efforts, Logano dropped from fourth to ninth place as the checkered flags flew.
  • The result marked his ninth top-10 finish in 17 races this season.
  • With the finish, Logano remained seventh in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings and he is now 99 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.


YOU AND BRAD HAD THE BEST CARS OUT THERE TONIGHT. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END THAT DROPPED YOU BACK?

“We lost a cylinder there with a handful of laps to go. But, I had a ninth-place finish down a cylinder. That was a good effort by my guys. They kicked some butt on pit road today. I was so proud of them there. We’ve been struggling a little bit there and they figured it back out, so it’s great to have a good group of guys behind me that were fighting for wins and contending to lead a lot of laps after pit stops. Brad had the best car. He was ridiculously fast from the time he unloaded. I can see what he’s doing. I can see what he’s got in his car and everything, he’s just fast. We’ll have to kind of go back and see what he’s doing, but, overall, I feel like today should have been a Penske 1-2 finish. I think Team Penske dominated Kentucky this weekend, it’s just unfortunate, but it’s still a top-10 out of being down one cylinder. We’ll take that.”

A LOT OF CARS HAD TIRE ISSUES. DID YOU HAVE ANY TIRE PROBLEMS TODAY?

“They told me mine was good every time. It seemed like right before we made a green flag stop every time someone would blow a right-front. I don’t know, but you have so much load on these tires. It’s the same thing we’re fighting all year. We add all this downforce to the cars and it’s just more load on the tire and the tire just can’t handle it. It’s going to eventually blow out, so you just have to be a little more conservative with your setup probably, and it kind of puts it back in the crew chief’s hands a little bit on whether you want the short run speed or you want the tire to pop. It kind of depends on what your setup is and how you drive the car.”


Quaker State 400