Federated Auto Parts 400 Preview

Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway (.75-mile oval, Richmond, VA)

No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion driven by Joey Logano

Saturday, September 7, 6:00 pm ET

• ONE MORE TO GO: Joey Logano is in a strong position heading into this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at RIR to qualify for the Chase. Logano sits eighth in the point standings, 16 points inside the top 10. Should Logano slip out of the top 10, he has one victory to fall back on for a potential wild-card berth. While Logano isn’t locked into the Chase, he is in a good position to make his first Chase for the Sprint Cup.
• COMEBACK KID: Following his 40th-place finish at the NHMS event in July, Logano found himself 18th in the point standings, 36 points out of the top 10. In the six races since, Logano has improved by 10 positions in the standings. This run marked the second time Logano has crawled back in the standings this season. Following the Darlington event in May, Logano was 19th in the point standings and 56 points out of the top 10. In six races, he was able to make up those points and work his way back inside the top 10 before a 40th-place finish at Daytona.
• ALMOST A WIN: Logano had the fastest car on the track in Atlanta on Sunday, but fell just a few laps short of grabbing his second win of 2013. Logano’s Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion led a race high 78 laps and was catching eventual winner Kyle Busch by three-tenths of a second per lap at the end of the event before running out of laps as the checkered flag waved. It was the third time this season that Logano has led the most laps in a race.
• THREE STRAIGHT: With his second-place finish on Sunday night, Logano collected his third-straight top-five finish. It’s the second time in his career that he has earned three-consecutive top-five results.
• STATS CONTINUE TO IMPRESS: Dating back to the Coke 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May, Logano has an average finish of 11th, which includes two 40th-place results. Take out those two unfortunate runs and Logano has an average finish of 6.3 over that span. He’s also scored the second-most top-10 finishes of any driver this season.
• WILD CARD CONTENDERS MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Logano will join Keselowski at the 2013 Wild Card Contenders Media Availability at the RIR amphitheater on Thursday afternoon beginning at 5:30 pm ET. The event will include a fan Q&A session with the drivers.

YOU ARE ONE RACE AWAY FROM MAKING THE CHASE, DO YOU FEEL ANY ADDED PRESSURE THIS WEEKEND?

“It’s something I’ve been saying and I will continue saying – we are not going to look at doing anything different this weekend then we have been doing the last several weeks. We are going to go out there and try and win the race or get the best possible finish we can. But I’d be lying if I said we also weren’t going to be paying attention to the competition. But we are not points racing just to get in – we are going to race hard and do what we’ve been doing all year. We get ourselves a good finish and we will lock ourselves into the Chase.”

WHILE YOU ARE LOOKING TO MAKE THE CHASE, YOUR TEAMMATE IS ALSO TRYING TO GET IN. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HIS CHANCES?

“I would hate to see Brad not make it. He’s the defending Champion and you want to see that guy in the Chase. You want to race him for the Championship. They just went through a stretch of races where he’s had some bad luck and some mechanical issues. Things were looking really good for him last weekend and the engine laid down. There is nothing you can do about that. I really hope they can make it in. But even if they aren’t in the Chase, they are still going to be factors during the Chase races. And if we are fortunate enough to make the Chase, I know he’s going to be a huge help to me and our team through just helping us learn things and getting us ready to run for the Championship.”