Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil team were not able to defend their Daytona 500 victory from a year ago on Sunday, but were able to close out Speedweeks with a solid sixth-place finish in the “Great American Race.” Logano started the race from the fifth position and raced to second just four laps into the event. However, the word of the day for the No. 22 team would be “tight” as Logano struggled with his racecar as the sun was beating down on the 2.5-mile speedway. Logano slipped as far back as 25th and ran mid-pack while crew chief Todd Gordon diagnosed the problem and worked on making adjustments to the Ford Fusion on each pit stop. Logano was able to race his way back into the top-five and became a fixture at the front with less than 50 laps to go. On a restart just 10 laps from the finish, Logano tried to make the outside lane prevail from the eighth position and got help from Kevin Harvick and several others. As the race wound down, Logano tried to make a charge amongst the beating and banging and was able to come up with a sixth-place finish.

“You have to try. This is the Daytona 500 and you try to win this thing no matter what. I was the only Ford up there though. I was the lone ranger. It was tough. I felt we started making decent progress up there but once we went three wide then that just kind of dragged the whole top lane back and the front kind of got going. Then the 4 got in front of me and we started moving and then the 11 saw that and jumped up there and got the push from both of us and then it was a heck of a finish. I don’t like being behind watching it. I want to be involved with it. Overall it is a great start for our Shell Pennzoil team and we kicked off the season with a bunch of great finishes down here in Daytona and we are looking forward to getting to Atlanta.”