Long Green-Flag Run Results in 19th-Place Finish for Logano at Texas

Post Race Highlights:

  • Logano qualified 14th for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Texas Motor Speedway. Logano was second quick of the three JGR cars. Denny Hamlin qualified 13th, while Kyle Busch qualified 17th.
  • From the drop of the green-flag, Logano was fighting a tight condition. He dropped back to 18th and ran just inside the top-20 for the early part of the event.
  • Over the first two stops, crew chief Jason Ratcliff changed air pressures and made track bar adjustments to get the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota handling better. While the changes helped, the car continued to be tight, causing Logano to fall back to as far back as 26th.
  • The race featured a record 234-lap run without any cautions, forcing multiple green-flag stops. The quick stops meant less time to make bigger adjustments, even though the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team moved the car’s balance from tight to loose.
  • Air and wedge adjustments over the final stops finally got the No. 20 handling right and Logano was running lap times right with the leaders, but with no caution flags, Logano was never able to race and get back on the lead lap. He had to settle for a 19th-place finish.
  • With the 19th-place finish, Logano remained 13th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings.

Logano’s Post-Race Thoughts:

“Man, I am flat worn out after that race. I can’t believe we ran that many laps without a caution. That just really makes it difficult to diagnose and make the changes that you want to make to get your car better. You don’t have time to talk about the car and the changes you want because you are under race conditions. So we took stabs at the car and we got it better, but it took us the whole race to get it where we wanted it to be. At that point, we were already a lap down and without a cautions giving you a chance to race to get back on the lead lap, you just try to pick up the positions that you can.

“We’ve got to figure out how to make our cars better at the start of the race. We work the whole race making it better and normally get it better, but at that point it is just too late. We’ve got speed and good cars, we just need to get them better at the beginning of these races. These next few weeks are going to be key to getting ourselves back into the hunt for the Chase.”

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