Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway Preview

• LOCKED INTO THE CHASE: With his second win of the 2014 season last Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway, Joey Logano is now all but officially locked into the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Chase. With two wins to Logano’s credit and the 16 drivers with the most victories (or highest in the points with no wins) qualifying for the Chase, Logano is all but assured of his spot in NASCAR’s post season.
• TRACK TYPE DOESN’T MATTER: The win at Richmond International Raceway was the first short track win of Logano’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career. Now, all five of Logano’s career wins have come on different size tracks. He’s won on a 0.75-mile (Richmond), one-mile (New Hampshire), 1.5-mile (Texas), two-mile (Michigan) and 2.5-mile (Pocono) track.
• CELEBRATE IN STYLE: With a short-week following his Monday win at Texas in early April, Logano had more time to celebrate Saturday night’s victory at Richmond with his friends, family and team members. Logano and several team members spent Sunday on Lake Norman in North Carolina enjoying the win. He also participated in a new Team Penske tradition, Happy Hour, where he toasted all of the team employees in the shop on Monday afternoon.
• LEADING LAPS: Logano has now led laps in eight of the nine events this season, tallying 36 more laps out front in Richmond. That brings his season total to 359 laps led through the first nine events, third best in the series. It is also 36 laps more than his previous single-season career-best, which was 323 laps led throughout the entire 2013 season. Logano also passed the 1,000 career laps led mark at Richmond.
• PENSKE PERFORMANCE: In the year-and-a-half that Logano has been driving for Team Penske, the 23-year-old’s performance on the track has skyrocketed. Logano led 337 total laps in his first four-plus years in the Sprint Cup series, but has led 682 since joining Team Penske. He has also amassed three wins, 16 top-fives and 24 top-10 finishes in his 45 starts since joining Team Penske versus two wins, 16 top fives and 41 top 10s in his previous 147 starts.

WITH TWO WINS THIS SEASON, DOES YOUR FOCUS CHANGE BETWEEN NOW AND THE CHASE?
“I don’t think so. I think we want to go out there and win more races. We would love to be able to go into the Chase as the number one seed, which is where we would be right now. But we all know that can change in an instant, especially with Talladega around the corner. So we still want to win races. And we would love to see our teammate (Brad Keselowski) get a second win, so we know we are both pretty much guaranteed for the Chase and we can really focus on that. So I don’t think anything really changes, other than maybe taking a chance or two when the timing is right.”

HOW MUCH OF A WILD CARD IS TALLADEGA?
“I think it is a Wild Card race because there are a lot of times that your outcome is out of your hands. You might have a really fast car, but if you get stuck in the wrong lane or make one wrong move, you can drop back outside of the top 20. And if someone else makes a mistake, you can get swept up in it. But it’s something that we’ve all come to deal with and understand. We just try and make the best of it as we are out there and try to keep ourselves in a good position to the end of the race. You want to win, but if you can come out of Talladega with the car in one piece and possibly a top-five or top-10 finish, it’s a pretty successful weekend.”