· Joey Logano’s chances at winning Sunday’s 400-mile race at Dover International Speedway were derailed before they ever got going as a mechanical failure on the second of three parade laps forced the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series Champion to the garage before the green flag flew, resulting in a 34th-place finish.
· While preparing to come to the start of the race, Logano radioed to crew chief Todd Gordon that he felt something amiss with his Ford Mustang. After a quick diagnosis on pit road, Gordon instructed Logano to drive to the garage for repairs. Quick work by the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil team got Logano back in the race in the 36th position on lap 24, but on a day with few caution flags there was no opportunity to make a dent in the lost laps.
· Once the repairs had been made, Logano was amongst the fastest cars on the track for many of the remaining laps. His biggest handling issue was a tight-handling condition in traffic, of which there is a lot of at the one-mile concrete oval.
· Logano was able to make up two positions before crossing the finish line in the 34th position. The finish places Logano just inside the cut line for the Round of 8 with two races remaining at Talladega Superspeedway and Kansas Speedway, two tracks where Logano has excelled.

 

“Something back there wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do, so we had to fix that and we were 20-something laps down from there. You can’t make up 20 laps, that is for sure. Maybe you can get one or two back if things go right. It was a bummer. Things happen. I guess the good news is that I think we are the last one in right now. We definitely used our mulligan. We used the playoff points we accumulated, we just have to be perfect now. We have two really good race tracks coming up though. Talladega is arguably one of our best race tracks and I would say Kansas is as well. We just have to be perfect from here.”