Joey Logano Takes Checkers at Auto Club Speedway, Grabs 10th-Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Win

Post Race Highlights:

• Joey Logano won the pole for Saturday’s race in convincing fashion, clocking in nearly fourth-tenths of a second faster than the second-place qualifier. The pole was Logano’s second-straight in 2012 (he won the pole last weekend in Bristol) and the 18th of his career. That puts him in a tie for ninth on the all-time list of NASCAR Nationwide Series pole winners. It was also his third-career pole at Auto Club Speedway.
• When the green-flag flew, Logano jumped out to an early lead. Logano would pace the field for the first 26 laps before getting passed by Brad Keselowski.
• Logano and the No. 18 Trans-Lux team fought a loose off condition early. Crew chief Adam Stevens made several minor adjustments on the car all afternoon long through air pressure, wedge and track bar adjustments.
• Logano had to fend off a number of different drivers for the top spot all afternoon long, including Elliot Sadler, Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Justin Allgaier and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
• Logano led eight different times during the race for a total of 92 of the race’s 150 laps.
• The No. 18 Trans-Lux pit crew were on their game all afternoon long, getting Logano out front stop after stop.
• Coming off the final caution flag, Logano restarted the race in third position. However, as soon as the green-flag waved, Logano made quick work of the top-two cars, grabbing the lead for the final time on lap 139. Logano was never challenged over the final 11 laps, cruising to the victory.
• The win was the 10th of Logano’s Nationwide Series career and his first since last season at Daytona International Speedway. The win was Logano’s second-career at Auto Club Speedway.
• The win also gave Joe Gibbs Racing eight-straight victories at Auto Club Speedway in NNS competition.

Logano’s Post-Race Thoughts:

“It feels so good to finally get back to Victory Lane. Man, I can’t even tell you how good this feels. I feel like we should have won one if not two Nationwide Series races already this season. I felt like we had Daytona won coming to the checkers and we had the best car at Bristol and just got caught behind on a bad set of tires. Today, we weren’t going to let anything get in our way. We had the best car and we were going to get this Trans-Lux Toyota in Victory Lane and that is exactly what we did. Our car was absolutely awesome today; the best out there. So to finally end up in Victory Lane is amazing.

“That was a great race out there today. At least it was from my vantage point, so I hope the fans loved it. It felt like we would build a huge lead and then we would get a caution and have a heck of a battle with some different cars. Brad (Keselowski), Justin (Allgaier) , Kyle (Busch) and Ricky (Stenhouse) all made me work for it today. They gave it their best shots and had some great battles. Our car wasn’t great to take off, but the longer the runs would go, the better we would get. So even though there were a few times where we fell back to third and a couple of seconds back, I never worried about it. Our car just kept getting better and better and we would run them down. The restarts were wild. We had some crazy restarts out there today.

“There at the end, Adam (Stevens, crew chief) made a couple of minor adjustments and made the call for four tires and our crew got me out in third. They did a great job all day long. I knew having four tires and knowing the guys in front of me didn’t have any, all we needed to do was get by them and just run as hard as possible. That is exactly how it worked out. We were able to get by the 2 (Sadler) and just pull out to a big lead. I was counting down the laps after that. Once I crossed the line and knew it had it, I let loose on the radio. It just feels so good to win one of these races. Hopefully, we can get several more this year.”