Joey Logano started third in Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway in the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion. Logano quickly moved to second, running there for the opening 37 laps before claiming the lead at lap 38.

Throughout the run, Logano said the car was good, only struggling with loose at corner exit once the rear grip had deteriorated.

Logano would lead from lap 38 to lap 100 as the entire first stage ran under green flag conditions, claiming the first stage win of the season for the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford.

During the second stage, Logano would drop as low as fourth before working his way back to the lead in the closing laps of the stage; taking the lead with 20 laps remaining in the second caution-free stage of the race.

Logano restarted in the lead for the final stage, but drifted back and at lap 245, fell out of the top five for the first time of the night, drifting back to the 10th position before green-flag stops at lap 270.

Following the round of green-flag stops, Logano worked his way back to the top five, but dropped behind teammate Brad Keselowski on lap 313, into the sixth position. Despite dropping back, a late race caution would allow Logano the opportunity to race back into the top-five. However, on the penultimate pit stop of the night, the air hose on the front air wrench got caught on the splitter, lengthening the pit stop and dropping the team from the fourth position to 10th for the 22-lap race to the checkered.

A caution flag with 10 laps remaining, brought the team back to pit road where the Shell-Pennzoil crew gained Logano four spots, putting him in the fourth spot for the restart. The team would maintain there through the closing stages of the event, bringing home a fourth place finish and a solid points day, having scored 20 points and two playoff points by winning the first two stages of the event.

 

“It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of speed in that Shell/Pennzoil Ford, especially early in the race and grabbing a couple of stage wins. That was really cool. I wish they were at the end of the race and not necessarily in the beginning and middle, but I’m proud of what the guys did there. We lost the handling a little bit that last stage and I fell back to sixth. We made some adjustments to get the speed back and then we were able to make some good adjustments to get the short-run speed where we were lacking early in the race. Then we had a really good pit stop at the end, which put us in position but not quite close enough to make something happen. We just kind of needed everyone to run into each other and be in the right place to make that happen, but, overall, I’m proud of this Shell/Pennzoil team. We have a good package here at Richmond. We run really well here and it was fun to be leading laps again up there. That was a lot of fun to see that clean air and passing cars and racing to the end of the stages was a lot of fun, but I wish it was for the win at the end. We scored a lot of points, so we’re proud of that.”