Sonoma Raceway Preview

TIME TO GO RIGHT AND LEFT: Joey Logano looks forward to the first road course event of the season this weekend at Sonoma Raceway. Logano’s career results at Sonoma, and at road courses in general, has improved steadily over the years. Over the last three seasons, Logano has produced finishes of sixth, 10th and 11th at Sonoma. He also won a NASCAR Pro Series West event at Sonoma in 2011. In addition, Logano has finishes of fifth and seventh at the other NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) road course, Watkins Glen International.
STILL A SURPRISE: When Logano visited Sonoma in 2011, he was still honing his road course skills through plenty of testing and simulator driving. That season he surprised the entire NSCS field by winning the pole in Sonoma, one of his eight career Sprint Cup Series pole positions.
DOING GOOD FOR THE TROOPS: The Joey Logano Foundation, along with Brad Keselowski’s Checkered Flag Foundation, recently launched a new program together. The Honor Your Military Hero program encourages fans to visit www.JoeyLoganoFoundation.com/HonorYourHero and describe someone in their life that has served in the military and is in need of a second chance. Submissions will be accepted online until Sunday, June 22 at 6 pm ET. The winner will be granted a $5,000 donation and receive a VIP trip for two to the conclusion of the NASCAR: An American Salute campaign at Daytona International Speedway’s Coke Zero 400 on July 5. The trip includes travel, hot pit passes to the race, driver meet and greets and entry to The Troops Welcome Center Presented by Coca-Cola for all active duty military, veterans and their families.
TOP HONORS: For the second-straight year, the Shell Science Teaching Award winner will receive recognition on the track and at the track in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The award, now celebrating its 23rd year, recognizes one outstanding classroom science teacher (K-12) who has had a positive impact on his or her students, school, and community through exemplary classroom science teaching. This year’s recipient, Kristen Poindexter, comes from Indianapolis, Ind. Kristen is an educator and science coach at Spring Mill Elementary and was chosen this spring after a rigorous competition sponsored by Shell with the National Science Teacher Association in early 2014. She will be a VIP guest of Shell and the No. 22 Team Penske team at Sonoma this weekend and her name will be proudly displayed on the rear bumper of Logano’s Ford Fusion all weekend.

WHAT KIND OF DIFFERENT PREPARATION DO YOU GO THROUGH FOR THE ROAD COURSE RACES COMPARED TO AN OVAL?

“Honestly, one of the biggest things we do is the amount of testing. We test three or four different times on road courses around the area like Road Atlanta and VIR (Virginia International Raceway). Mostly, it’s for me to get back in the swing of things with lefts and rights, shifting and braking. But there are a few things the guys will do different to the cars and we test some of that stuff as well, like different brake packages and such. And we do a lot of that just testing and testing and testing. But I wouldn’t say there is a whole lot different that goes into these races. More, it’s the strategy during the race and how you play it, especially going backwards.”

DO YOU THINK QUALIFYING WILL DEVELOP DIFFERENTLY ON THE ROAD COURSES WITH THE NEW GROUP QUALIFYING FORMAT?

“Well, we’ve actually had some group qualifying before on the road courses, so it won’t change a lot. You don’t have to rely on aero there and you can get enough space in between you and other cars that you don’t have to worry about it. The biggest thing will be how things play out in rounds two and three and what the tire fall off is. If you screw up a lap, you get a chance to do it again and try and make it better, but then again you know that the tire fall off will be there. On the tracks where we thought things might play out a little differently this year, other than the restrictor-plate tracks, they really didn’t. So it’s more about just making the most of the opportunity and doing what’s in front of us.”