No. 20 Home Depot Toyota News & Notes:

• ANOTHER TOP-10 IN DOVER: Joey Logano grabbed his fourth top-10 finish of the season last weekend at Dover International Speedway with his eighth-place run in the FedEx 400. Logano had a solid shot at a top-five finish but problems with the engine shutting off on its own under caution dropped Logano back from seventh to 15th with less than 50 laps to go. Logano didn’t let that stop him however and raced his way back into the top-10 and was catching the sixth- and seventh-place cars when the checkers flew. Logano has now recorded two top-10 finishes in his last three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.
• POCONO ON THE LIST THAT OWES LOGANO: If you look at Logano’s career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stats at Pocono Raceway, they don’t look all that impressive; six career starts and a best finish of 11th. However, when you start to dig deeper you realize that Pocono has been a good track for Logano since the start of his Sprint Cup Series career. In 2010, Logano was running inside the top five when he got hit from behind by another driver with just a handful of laps left, knocking him out of a top-five finish. He had to restart 30th and was able to charge back up to 13th by the end of the event. In the second event at Pocono last season, Logano started on the pole, led 44 laps and was out front when rain began to fall. However, the race got back going and Logano found himself sixth with less than 20 laps to go when he cut a tire and had to pit under green-flag conditions. That dropped him back to a 26th-place finish. Logano has completed every lap of all six of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races he’s run at Pocono.
• HOPING NNS “MO” FOLLOWS JOEY TO CUP: While Logano is still looking to find his groove this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, he’s hoping some of his momentum from the NASCAR Nationwide Series will slide its way over to the Cup Series. Joey won last week’s Nationwide Series event at Dover International Speedway giving him four wins on the season, one shy of his single-season career high. He has also won three of the last four Nationwide Series events he’s competed in and on a variety of different tracks, including Talladega, Darlington and Dover. Logano will be back in the Nationwide Series at Michigan next weekend.
• WHEN SLIDING SIDEWAYS IS GOOD: One of the lasting memories of Logano and Pocono Raceway is his long, sideways slide through turn three in 2010 after getting hit from behind by another competitor, knocking him out of a top-five finish. Next week though, Logano will be doing some more long, sideways slides with billowing smoke – but this time on purpose. Logano will get a lesson from drifting champion Ken Gushi and his Toyota Scion FR-S at ZMax Dragway just outside of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Logano will get behind the wheel with Gushi and get a few lessons before taking on the challenge himself. Gushi was introduced to drifting at an early age by his father and once his skills improved, he moved on to professional competition becoming the youngest driver in both the D1 Grand Prix of Japan and the Formula Drift Championship in the USA. The GReddy Racing Scion FR-S was built in-house at the GReddy R&D facility in Irvine, CA under great secrecy. GReddy, along with parent company TRUST, have a long and successful race history with Toyota that dates back to the 1970’s.
• JOEY GETS JUMP ON FIELD AT POCONO: When the Sprint Cup Series visits Pocono this coming weekend, they will have two built in “test days” on both Wednesday and Thursday to allow all the teams to get used to Pocono’s newly repaved surface. And while it will be the first time most teams have seen the new pavement, it will be the second time for Logano and his Home Depot team. That is because Logano was one of just a handful of drivers who participated in a Goodyear tire test at the 2.5-mile tri-oval back in late April.
• RACE INFO: The Pocono 400 presented by #NASCAR at Pocono Raceway (Long Pond, PA; 2.5-mile tri-oval) is set for Sunday, June 10th at 12pm ET. The race will be broadcast on TNT (TV) and MRN (radio).

Logano’s 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Season Stats:

Logano’s Career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Stats:

Logano’s Career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Stats at Pocono Raceway:

From the Cockpit:

Joey Logano Quotes: “There are going to be a lot of unknowns going into the Pocono race this weekend with the new pavement and all. Those of us who tested there have an idea as to what we can expect, but once you get more cars out there, more rubber on the track and a little more age on the track, things will probably change quite a bit. Those of us who got to do the tire test won’t really be that far ahead. We have an idea of what the new track feels like, but all of these teams out there are so good and all of the drivers are so good, that with just a little bit of track time, pretty much everyone will already be back on the same page and no one will really have any sort of advantage.

“I don’t think anyone knows what to expect as far as the race. There will probably be a lot of single file racing until the track rubbers up and gets a second groove working. One thing we do know is it will be a lot faster. Pocono was always fast and the track is really smooth right now, so that means speeds will be up. The good thing is that some of the guys that have had a lot of advantages before at Pocono might not have them know, so I think everyone has a shot. I think we will be good and I hope we can keep our momentum going.”

No. 20 Home Depot Toyota / Joe Gibbs Racing Team:

Driver – Joey Logano
Crew Chief – Jason Ratcliff
Car Chief – Jason Shapiro
Race Engineer – Jacob Canter
Engineer – Mike Lorusso
Spotter – Rocky Ryan
Shock Specialist – Dusty Boyd
Mechanic – Scott Geerts
Mechanic – Todd Foster
Mechanic – Leo Thorsen
Tire Specialist – Jerold Shires
Engine Tuner – Mike Johnson
Tires – Bill Byrne
Truck Driver – Thomas “Thumper” McCrimmon
Truck Driver – Scott “Scooter” Crowell
Jackman – Jason Tate
Gasman – John Eicher
Front Tire Changer – John Royer
Front Tire Carrier – Joe Crossen
Rear Tire Changer – Chris Taylor
Rear Tire Carrier – Eric Groen