THE RACE
Subway Firecracker 250 at Daytona International Speedway (2-mile superspeedway, Daytona Beach, Fla.)
No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang driven by Joey Logano
Friday, July 4, 7:30 pm ET
THE BROADCAST
Race: Subway Firecracker 250
Track: Daytona International Speedway
Race Start Time: 7:30 pm ET
Radio Broadcast: Live on MRN and SIRIUS XM NASCAR Channel 90
THE NEWS AND NOTES
THE Q & A
The No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang
· A CHANGE OF SCHEDULE… HE’S BACK: Joey Logano had thought he was going to be back in the NASCAR Nationwide Series last weekend at Kentucky. But a change of plans put teammate Brad Keselowski in the car. Now, Logano is back in the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang at Daytona and is also scheduled to run at Indianapolis and Watkins Glen in the coming weeks.
· OH SO CLOSE… AGAIN: The No. 22 Discount Tire Ford team had yet another race win slip from their fingertips last weekend at Kentucky after a pit road speeding penalty kept Keselowski from winning. The week before, Alex Tagliani nearly won at Road America after running out of gas while in the lead with just a couple of laps to go. And in Logano’s last start, coming at Michigan, the 24-year-old was headed to victory with just five laps to go when a flat tire brought him to pit road under green.
· VICTORY LANE VETERAN: Logano is a former winner at Daytona International Speedway in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Logano took the lead on the white flag lap and led the field to the checkers in the summer race in 2011. It’s not the first time Logano has been in contention to win at Daytona. On three separate occasions over the course of his Nationwide Series career, Logano has been leading on the white flag lap only to find himself be swept up in an accident.
· WILL CUP QUALIFYING TRANSLATE TO NNS QUALIFYING?: On the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series side, Logano has earned a reputation as being one of the best qualifiers in the series, making the final round in all but one “knockout” session. On the Nationwide Series side, Logano will get his first taste of “knockout” qualifying on a restrictor-plate track in the Nationwide Series. In the previous two Nationwide Series events at Daytona and Talladega, the No. 22 team has qualified 17th and sixth respectively.
· MEET LOGANO: Logano will make an appearance at the Daytona Beach Discount Tire store on Thursday morning, July 3, at 9:00am. The store is located at 1051 Beville Rd., Daytona Beach.
JOEY LOGANO, NO. 22 DISCOUNT TIRE FORD
THE 22 TEAM HAS BEEN CLOSE THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS. DO YOU THINK YOU CAN TURN IT AROUND IN DAYTONA?
“We really have given them away in the last couple of weeks, haven’t we? I thought we had a win all but locked up in Michigan, and we had a flat tire there with about four or five laps to go in the race while just cruising out front. Then Alex (Tagliani) was really fast in Road America and ran out of fuel, then almost came back to win on the green-white-checkered finish. And Brad had them covered last weekend in Kentucky. So the No. 22 team has been fast the last month or so. We just need to close the deal. We are building fast race cars, and the team is doing everything right. We just need to put all of the pieces together. I think if we do, we can win several in a row. And there wouldn’t be a better place to close it than at Daytona this weekend.”
WHAT DID IT MEAN TO YOU TO GET YOUR FIRST DAYTONA WIN BACK IN 2011?
“There are a lot of tracks that you would like to win at, but everyone wants to win a race at Daytona. I always said I didn’t care if it was a go-kart race or a Sprint Cup Series race, I just wanted to win one at Daytona and we were able to do that that night. Before that, I had had a bunch of opportunities to win and was even leading a couple of races heading to the checkered flag and got wrecked, so to come back and seal the deal was awesome. It was in the days of the “two-car tango” racing and we made a big move in between some lapped cars and put ourselves in position to win. I got a good push from my teammate at the time, and we were able to hold off a couple of guys that were charging from the back. It was awesome, and it’s one of the wins I cherish the most of all of my Nationwide Series wins.”
