THE RACE

Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (1.5-mile speedway, Homestead, Fla.)

No. 22 Hertz Ford Mustang driven by Joey Logano

November 16, 2013

THE RACE REVIEW
  • Joey Logano qualified the No. 22 Hertz Ford Mustang in the fourth position for Saturday evenings NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
  • Coming into the event, Logano and the No. 22 Hertz team had a four-point lead over the No. 54 of Joe Gibbs Racing in the hunt for the Owners Championship.
  • Early in the race, Logano settled into third place and battled side-by-side with the No. 54 while racing for the top spot. Over the first 50 laps, Logano swapped between second and third on six different occasions.
  • Following his first pit stop of the day, Logano struggled with a tight car on the restarts and fell back to sixth. Despite that, Logano would start a charge back toward the front of the field and race his way to the lead for the first time on lap 83.
  • Logano would hold the lead until a restart on lap 102 but would get it back a handful of laps better on lap 134 in his quest to lead as many laps as possible and try and gain the bonus point for leading the most laps.
  • Crew chief Jeremy Bullins called for a gas only stop with 50 laps to go. As the race went back green, Logano fell back to eighth. With 20 to go, Logano was able to come in and get his final set of tires and charge back to the front.
  • Logano raced from 17th to sixth over the final laps, earning enough points to win the NASCAR Nationwide Series owners title, a first for team owner Roger Penske. The team won the title by just one point over the No. 54 team.
Quotes

YOU DIDN’T WIN THE RACE, BUT WERE ABLE TO WIN THE OWNER’S TITLE FOR ROGER. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT?

“For my rookie season with Penske Racing what we wanted to do was go out here and win this owner’s championship. I was fortunate to win it before and to win it for Roger means a lot to me and that whole 22 team. They deserve it. Twelve wins with a dominant race car and coming down to the last lap with that 54 team was insane. We were sitting there, I think we were 12th on that last restart with five to go, and you really don’t have an option at that point. You’ve got to go and we had a set of tires on the thing and coming down to the last laps was just crazy, but Jeremy Bullins and all the guys on that 22 team, Hertz, Discount Tire, every one — AJ, Ryan Blaney, Brad – the guys that have driven this car this year, we’ve all won a race in this car and that goes to show how lucky we are to get to drive this car, so I have a lot of fun doing it.”

Photos

Ford EcoBoost 300