Long Green Flag Runs Result in 16th-Place Finish for Logano at Bristol
Post-Race Highlights:
- Logano qualified ninth for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was his third-straight top-10 start of the 2012 season.
- When the green flag dropped for the event on Sunday, Logano quickly settled into a top-10 position and rode for the first part of the race, missing an early multi-car accident that took out several of the top contenders.
- All afternoon long, Logano fought a “tight center” condition on the Home Depot Toyota. Crew chief Jason Ratcliff made a number of minor adjustments to try and get the car better as the day went on, including wedge and air adjustments and taking a rubber out of the right rear spring.
- The tight condition continued during a near 200-lap green flag run, which limited the team’s ability to bring the car to pit road and adjust on the Home Depot Toyota. During that time frame, Logano dropped a lap off the pace.
- A few cautions during the final portion of the race allowed Logano to work himself into the “Lucky Dog” position. However, with Logano riding in the free pass spot, another caution never came.
- Logano was as low as 20th late, but was able to drive back up to 16th before the checkers flew, again topping the Joe Gibbs Racing contingent in Bristol.
- With the 16th-place finish, Logano unofficially remains ninth in the Sprint Cup Series point standings just 11 points out of the top-five and 31 points out of the lead.
Logano’s Post-Race Thoughts:
“This is not what we were expecting coming out of Bristol. We knew we had a better Home Depot Toyota than what our results show today. We just got a little behind on the handling and never had a chance to come in and make the adjustments that we needed too. It’s not too often you see such long green flag runs here at Bristol and that was when we were struggling the most and we needed to be able to come in and make some adjustments. The car was really tight and I couldn’t get back to the gas and that is a killer here. The cautions just never came.
“By the end, we had made the car better and worked our way into the Lucky Dog position, but again we never got a caution. This car was better than 16th today. I really feel we should have finished 10th or so because we were passing some of the guys that were running 10th, 11th and 12th there at the end. That would have been a big help in the point standings. But I guess you need to look on the bright side of things. We came out of Bristol with a car in one-piece and a solid finish and we are still top-10 in the points. We just need to work better at having a car that handles early in the race. It’s still early and Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) and I are still learning together. We will keep getting better and I still think good things are coming.”