Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (1.5-mile oval, Homestead, Florida)

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

Sunday, November 17, 2013

• Joey Logano started Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, in the third position behind the wheel of the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion.
• After running in fourth place over the first handful of laps, Logano fell back to the back half of the top 10, where he would run for a majority of the afternoon.
• Throughout the race, Logano reported that the No. 22 Ford Fusion ran extremely loose, both entering and exiting the corners. Despite a number of huge adjustments all afternoon long, the loose condition was something that would hinder the team all day.
• The No. 22 pit crew did a great job on pit road, but several four- tire stops resulted in Logano often coming out of the pits a few positions worse than he entered. Despite the lost spots in the pits, Logano was able to drive his way back into the back half of the top 10.
• Crew chief Todd Gordon continued to make huge adjustments with tire pressure and wedge changes to keep up with the changing track conditions as night descended on the speedway.
• Logano took advantage of several caution flags late in the race to earn a couple of key positions.
• Late in the race, Logano ran as low as 11th, but he was able to race his way back to eighth place when the checkered flags flew on the race and on the season.
• With his eighth-place run, his 19th top-10 finish of the season, Logano ended up eighth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings – a career-best for the 23-year-old. Logano was the highest-finishing Ford driver in the NASCAR season point standings.
• Logano produced career highs in top five (11) and top 10 (19) finishes and matched career bests in wins (one) and poles (two) this season.

IT SEEMED LIKE THE SHELL-PENNZOIL FORD WAS RUNNING LOOSE ALL NIGHT LONG. WAS THAT THE CASE?

“We made a lot of adjustments all night on this Shell-Pennzoil Ford and it just wasn’t getting any better. It was like we were barely keeping up with the track. We put like six rounds in the left-rear and took four or five out of the right-rear, track bar, rubbers, air-pressure, we did everything we could do and it would just get loose no matter what. No matter what we’d do it got loose. We would fight ahead and maintain a little bit and finished eighth, so overall it was a solid day.”

WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON YOUR FIRST YEAR WITH PENSKE RACING?

“We did a good job this year and learned a lot about each other, and learned a lot about where we could have done a better job in races and where we need to improve next year and where to work on our cars during the off-season. It’s been a pleasure to work with (crew chief) Todd Gordon and all these guys on this team. I had a lot of fun this year and this was my best season personally. I’d still call it a good season, not a great season. We were just talking about the opportunities we had to win and we feel like we had the chance to win five races and we capitalized on one of them, so that’s a good area we can learn from and figure out how to limit our mistakes. I gave up a couple and we had some other mistakes that gave up a few too, so we’ve got areas we need to improve and we’ll do it.”