Joey Logano and the No. 22 AAA Ford Fusion qualified 10th for Sunday afternoon’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

When the green flag waived to begin the 500-mile event, Logano proved to have a solid car. He locked into seventh place just 10 laps into the race and held steady as the early laps of the event were completed.

The AAA Ford developed a handling condition that had the car running tight in the center and loose coming out of the turns and it continued to haunt the No. 22 Team Penske team throughout the race. Early on, Logano would be strong on race restarts, but he fought the condition late in the run and would lose a few spots as a result.

Despite the condition, Logano raced in the top 10 for most of the race, getting as high as third place over the race’s first 250 laps.

The AAA Ford team had a strong performance on pit road, consistently getting Logano out of the pits quickly and to positions on his competitors over each stop.

For the next 50 laps, Logano began to work his way toward the front of the field, running as high as second place as the AAA Ford Fusion continued to get better and better thanks to crew chief Todd Gordon’s adjustments.

On lap 297, during a late round of pit stops, Logano experienced a major problem in the pits when several lugs nuts fell off of the right rear tire during a green flag stop, which dropped the 24-year-old from fourth to 23rd in the running order. Glue that hadn’t dried properly on the lug nuts proved to be the reason for the problem.

With a tall task in front of him, Logano began his charge back toward the front. However, just a few laps later, the No. 9 car of Marcos Ambrose bounced off the wall as Logano was passing him and got into the side of the No. 22 AAA Ford, which cut the right rear tire. Logano eventually spun out, dropping him a few more positions to 26th place.

With track position key and several late caution flags, Gordon elected to keep the AAA Ford on track during a caution period on lap 315, which put Logano seventh on the ensuing restart.

As the laps wound down, Logano did all he could to hold onto his position with older tires and he eventually came home with a solid 12th-place result.

With the finish, Logano was able to vault his way back to the top of the Chase point standings, as several other Chase drivers experienced problems as well. Logano is now tied for the top spot in the Championship Chase with Denny Hamlin.

YOU MADE THE MOST OUT OF SOME CHALLENGES IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE RACE. WHAT WAS YOUR TAKE ON THE FINISH?

“We were able to salvage something decent out of tonight for sure. We were a top-five car and possibly a winning car if scenarios played out right. I don’t know what happened with the glue on the pit stop and I haven’t gotten the full story yet but we had a hell of a time trying to put rear tires on the car. We lost all our track position with 30 to go. Then I came off the corner and the 9 (car) hit me and popped my right rear and then we spun out. We put tires back on it and then just held on until the end and got something decent out of something that could have been way worse. I am proud of everyone that kept their heads down and kept digging. That isn’t the way we wanted to do it, that is for sure. You have to expect that, though, when you put yourself back there with a few laps to go. We put ourselves in a bad spot for something to happen. It is a snowball effect. We put ourselves in a bad spot and got in an even worse spot and then dug ourselves halfway out of a hole there.”

YOU ARE THE POINT LEADER. CAN YOU TAKE ANYTHING FROM THAT GOING INTO PHOENIX?

“We are (leading), which is good. But it is close. I know we are close on the points. But like I’ve said all year long, we just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing. If we go to Phoenix and we get a solid top-five finish, then things should take care of themselves. Of course, we want to go and win the race. But everyone is going to be looking at points as well. We just need to do what we are doing and continue doing it. That’s all I’m worrying about.”