Broken Part Makes for Long Day for Logano at Watkins Glen.

Post-Race Highlights:

  • Joey Logano and his No. 20 Home Depot Toyota timed in 14th quick for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Watkins Glen International.
  • Early in the event, Logano settled into the 17th position, complaining of a car that would not turn in the 2.45-mile road course’s right-handers. The lack of grip on the right-handers kept Logano from making up any ground.
  • Logano eventually radioed to crew chief Jason Ratcliff that he felt something was wrong in the rear of the car and that it was stiff and wanting to wheel hop in the heavy braking zones. Eventually, the problems got so bad Ratcliff called Logano in to check on the issues and changed a right rear shock under caution.
  • When Logano made it back out on the track, he radioed in that the problem was worse and the team had to pull the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota behind the wall, eventually diagnosing the problem as a left-rear broken shock mount. The team spent 19 laps behind the wall making repairs.
  • The No. 20 Home Depot Toyota made it back out on the track, and once the repairs were made, was running lap times just as fast as the cars in the top-five. The rest of the afternoon, Logano kept the No. 20 out of trouble and used the race as an extended test session, making changes on the car to see how it reacted on the track. In the meantime, Logano picked up a number of positions by passing cars that had fallen out of the race.
  • When the checkers flew, Logano came home with a disappointing 32nd-place finish in the Finger Lakes 355. The finish dropped him one spot in the points to 18th.

Logano’s Post-Race Thoughts:

“What a bummer day for the Home Depot Toyota. I’ve had some pretty good runs at these road courses the last couple of years and I felt like we’d have an equal shot at that today. Early in the race, the car just wasn’t handling right. We were struggling on the right-handers and it just wasn’t there. I figured we just needed to make some adjustments. But I’m guessing it was all related to what eventually happened. The shock mount broke and that isn’t much you can do about that. These road courses are tough on equipment and things break sometimes. It’s just too bad because once we fixed it and made a couple of adjustments, we were running top-five lap times. That makes me think that if we hadn’t had this problem, we could have been a contender today. We just need to go to Michigan now and focus on winning the race. It’s all about winning races from here on out to hope we can make the Chase.”

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Finger Lakes 355