THE RACE
The Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway (2.66-mile superspeedway, Talladega, Ala.) – NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
THE RACE REVIEW
- Qualifying for the Aaron’s 499 was rained out, so the lineup was set based off of practice speeds from Friday’s first practice session, which put Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford fourth at the start of Sunday’s race.
- With cars shuffling positions through the field as usual in restrictor-plate racing, Logano raced to fifth place but eventually he got shuffled back to just outside the top 20.
- At that point, Logano decided to just ride around the back of the field and save his equipment. This paid off as Logano missed a huge multi-car accident early on.
- With rain approaching and the halfway point completed, Logano raced his way to the third position just as the rains started to fall. Eventually, the weather cleared and, three hours later, the race restarted.
- Logano was still running strong in the draft when, several laps after the restart, he reported that he was losing power and brought the Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion to pit road. Unfortunately, the engine issue was terminal and the team retired from the race, eventually finishing 35th.
- With the result, Logano is ranked 18th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver standings.
HOW WAS YOUR RACE BEFORE THE RAINS CAME?
“Early in the race, we got shuffled back and we decided to just ride. I don’t normally like doing that, but the way the guys up front were racing early, you just felt like something was going to happen. So I just decided to ride around back there and it paid off and we missed a big wreck. Then, once we knew the rains were coming, we were able to line up about four Fords and race towards the front. We were third and I think we would have been able to challenge for the lead if we would have had a few more laps before the rains came.”
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE RACE RESTARTED?
“It looked like we were still going to be strong. But then, the engine just started to lay over and we had to come into the pits. We looked it over and it was terminal. There was nothing we could do. It was a frustrating end to what looked like it could have been a promising day. Now we just need to focus on getting some wins to make up these points.”