Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion team qualified 16th for Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, the AAA 400, at Dover International Speedway.
At the beginning of the event, Logano radioed to his team that he knew the car might be a little slow on the short runs, but long-run speed would help over the course of the afternoon. It showed early as Logano slowly moved his way from 16th to the top 10 by lap 37 before falling back to 11th just prior to the first pit stop of the day.
After Logano worked his way back inside the top 10, a bad restart just before lap 100, an extremely tight-handling car and dirty air saw Logano fall from 11th all the way back to 22nd in the running order before the next round of stops on lap 125.
Despite the issues, Logano and crew chief Todd Gordon never gave up and continued to work on the Shell-Pennzoil Ford, making air pressure and track bar adjustments to loosen the car’s handling in traffic.
On the next restart, Logano began his charge back to the front of the field. After restarting 22nd, Logano was positioned 16th just 20 laps later and then was back inside the top 10 after 50 more laps.
Once Logano raced his way back to the top 10, he made a home there for the rest of the afternoon and began to work on picking cars off one-by-one.
With less than 70 laps to go, Logano finally cracked the top five and set his sights on gaining as many positions as possible.
The 24-year-old driver was able to gain one more position as the 400-lap event came to a conclusion.
The fourth-place finish marked the third-consecutive top five for Logano to start the Chase. Logano was the only driver in the Chase to earn a top-five finish in each of the first three Chase races.
Logano will now move into the Contender Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup as the second seed, now just four points behind teammate Brad Keselowski.
TODAY WAS AN UP AND DOWN DAY FOR YOU. FROM THE BACK TO THE FRONT TO THE BACK TO THE FRONT. HOW DO YOU THINK THE DAY WENT?
“It was a tough week for us for sure. When we unloaded, we just didn’t have the speed that we were hoping to have. We worked on it and worked on it and never seemed to get it to where we wanted it. It was about a 10th-place car I felt after our final practice yesterday. But Todd Gordon and all of the guys on the Shell-Pennzoil team didn’t give up. They worked on it overnight, came up with a plan and got the car a lot better. We started strong and got to the top 10, but had a bad restart and lost all of that and then some. I think we were back at like 22nd or 23rd at one point. So we just came in, made some adjustments, got some fresh tires and kind of reset. We started gaining those spots back and eventually made it up to fourth at the end of the race. That’s the kind of team this is. We never give up. And today was the perfect example of that.”
WITH THREE TOP-FIVE FINISHES IN THE FIRST THREE CHASE RACES, THAT’S A PRETTY GOOD START ISN’T IT?
“That’s a good start for sure. Of course, the year they change it is the year that I wish we were still on the old Chase points system. It would be nice to be sitting second in the points. But we play the system we are dealt, and we are now going into Kansas even with everyone. We just need to keep doing what we are doing. We keep it up and win one of the next two races and focus on the next round. That’s what we have to do.”