Joey Logano started second and finished ninth in the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion in Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Logano ran in the top-five for the first 254 laps of the event before being assessed a drive through penalty for a crew member being over the wall too soon during a cycle of green flag pit stops. After serving the penalty, Logano and his Shell-Pennzoil crew would be forced to fight from behind as they worked to regain the lap lost while serving the penalty. Making the challenge even greater for the team was the fact that Sunday night’s event proved to be the fastest Coca-Cola 600 on record with a race time of three hours and 44 minutes. Despite the torrid pace and lack of cautions in the 600-mile event the team was able to race back to the lead lap through Logano’s and a strategy call by crew chief Todd Gordon to short pit. By short pitting, Logano was able to leap frog race leader and eventual winner Martin Truex Jr. and rejoin the lead lap without being the beneficiary of a free pass or wave around. The team remained on the lead lap and fought their way back for the ninth place finish. The No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford was one of only four cars to lead the event.

“Yeah, we got a pit road penalty during one of those super-long green flag runs and had to make a pass-through and went down a lap. We did a good job recovering without a caution because we were able to pass the leader back and be able to get back on the lead lap and then we finally got a caution, but it was so late in the race and you can only pick a couple off on the restart. We kind of settled in there and it was hard to pass tonight, so I had a lot better car than ninth – that’s for sure. I had something that could have finished in the top three or four, and maybe second. We didn’t have anything for the 78. Martin Truex was on fire tonight and really all weekend. They had it figured out. We had nothing for him, but at times I thought we were definitely a second-place car, but unfortunately it’s a distant second.”