Joey Logano / No. 20 GameStop Toyota Preview – O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway

Joey Logano / No. 20 GameStop Toyota Preview

O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway

No. 20 GameStop Toyota News, Notes & Paint Scheme:

• LOGANO LOOKS TO STILL GET DRESSED UP, EVEN AFTER HALLOWEEN:  Joey Logano went to a few Halloween parties in the past week.  He dressed up as movie star/comedian Russell Brand at one of them.  At another, he was Lloyd Christmas, also known as half of the pairing from the movie Dumb and Dumber (the other half was roommate Coleman Pressley).  At Texas Motor Speedway, Logano will hope to dress up as a victorious cowboy.  That’s because the winner of any race at Texas is rewarded a cowboy hat in Victory Lane.  And Logano will be looking for his first Texas Motor Speedway cowboy hat this weekend as he returns to the seat of the No. 20 GameStop Toyota in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.   And Logano has been close before; last year, Logano finished second to teammate Kyle Busch in the spring race.  He also has three career fourth-place finishes at Texas , including earlier this season.  Along with his four-career top-five finishes, Logano has also recorded a pole at the 1.5-mile track.
• BIGGEST GAME OF THE YEAR:  CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3 :  What might be one of the biggest and most highly- anticipated games of the season will ride on the side of the No. 20 GameStop Toyota this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.  Modern Warfare is back. The best-selling first person action series of all-time returns with the epic sequel to multiple Game of the Year award winner, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2. Prepare yourself for a cinematic thrill-ride as only Call of Duty can deliver. Engage enemy forces in New York, Paris, Berlin and other attack sites across the globe. Special Ops returns with a bevy of additions, including 16 new objective-based missions and the all-new Survival Mode. Team up online, locally, or play solo and face endless waves of attacking enemies throughout every multiplayer map.  Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3 hits store shelves November 8^th and will be available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
• FOLLOW GAMESTOP RACING ON TWITTER, FIND STUFF AT THE TRACK:  This weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, and next weekend at Phoenix International Raceway, fans who are in attendance at the track and follow GameStop Racing on Twitter (@GameStopRacing) will have the chance to find and win cool stuff, including hats, shirts and maybe even some video games.  The GameStop team will be doing an “at-track scavenger hunt” at Texas and Phoenix, giving out hints as to where different prizes are located around the facilities.  All it takes is being in attendance and also a follow on Twitter.  And anyone, from fans to team members to media members can get the free stuff…  just find it first.
• BACK HOME AGAIN, IN INDIANA WE MEAN TEXAS:  Race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway always means a little more to Joey Logano and the No. 20 GameStop team.  That’s because TMS is the home track for the corporate offices of GameStop, long-time sponsor of the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and Logano.  GameStop is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas , just a short drive from the racetrack. GameStop is the world’s largest video game and software entertainment retailer and has been a supporter of Logano and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota since he made his debut at Dover International Speedway in 2008. 
• LOGANO FEELING GOOD ABOUT 1.5-MILE TRACKS:  Of Logano’s nine-career NASCAR Nationwide Series victories, six have come on tracks that equal 1.5-miles in length (seven if you count the 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway).  But this season, Logano and the No. 20 GameStop team have admittedly struggled on 1.5-mile tracks.  Logano pointed to the new NASCAR Nationwide Series car and the team just looking to continue to figure it out and make their cars as competitive as possible.  A couple of weeks ago at Charlotte, Logano and the JGR team made huge strides in their 1.5-mile program, qualifying third and running in the top-three all night long before getting involved in a late-race accident.  After the race, Logano indicated that it was the best car on a 1.5-mile track he’s had all season long.  And with two of the final three events on the schedule 1.5-mile tracks, Logano is feeling good.
• CHASSIS:  The JGR team will bring chassis #136 to Texas for the race this weekend.  It will be the first race of the year for the chassis.  Chassis #132 will serve as the team’s backup.
• STAT OF THE WEEK:  95.4. In the last 13 races at Texas Motor Speedway, Logano has found himself running in the top-15 for 95.4% of the laps he’s competed in.  That mark is higher than any other active driver during that span of races.
• THE RACE:  The O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway ( Ft. Worth , TX ; 1.5-mile tri-oval) is set for Saturday afternoon, November 5, 2011.  The race will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 12:55 p.m. ET, with radio coverage on PRN starting at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Logano’s 2011 NASCAR Nationwide Series Season Stats:

Logano’s Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats:

Logano’s Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats at Texas Motor Speedway:

Joey Logano Quotes:

“Texas has always been a strong track for us, even though our record doesn’t show it. Our average finish position there is like an eighth, but it really should be even better than that.  We just missed winning a race there last season and we’ve finished fourth a bunch.  But we had better cars than those fourth-place runs were.  Pit strategy and other problems have kept us from a couple of wins at the track I think.  So going into the weekend, I know this is a place we should be able to run up front at.  And after our run at Charlotte, which is similar in size and shape to Texas, I feel even more confident.  I’m looking for a good weekend in Texas.

“It’s no secret that we’ve not been as strong on the 1.5-mile tracks this year as we have in the past.  But the entire Joe Gibbs Racing organization has been working hard at making our stuff better and we really showed it in Charlotte.  I thought we were one of the two or three best cars at Charlotte.  Unfortunately, we had another run in with a competitor that we’ve tangled with this year and that took us out of contention.  But our GameStop Toyota was fast at Charlotte and I think we will be just as good at Texas.  I know the guys were talking about Texas all weekend long in Charlotte and making sure everything we did there carried over to here.

“Texas is always important too because GameStop is just down the road and one of the things I really want to do is get them in Victory Lane right here at their home track.  We’ve been close, so getting that little bit more out of it and having all of the guests that they normally bring to the track get to celebrate would be huge.  We normally have a lot of executives come to this race, so we’ll ready to go. Plus, we are promoting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 this weekend, which is one of the biggest selling games of the year for GameStop. That would be a huge plus to get them in Victory Lane.  They just told me that the entire Call of Duty series of games have sold nearly 95 million copies since it started.  That is huge.  So to get this Call of Duty car into Victory Lane would get a lot of extra attention.”

No. 20 GameStop Toyota / Joe Gibbs Racing Team

Driver – Joey Logano                                             Crew Chief – Adam Stevens                                   Car Chief – Mike Sibley
Race Engineer – Curtis Ratzlaff                             Shock Specialist – Joel Weidman                         Front-end – Dave Rudy
Rear-end – Chris “Yoshi” Jones                              Tire Specialist – Glen Wheeler                              Engine Tuner – Roger Purcell

Truck Driver – Tim Clancy                                      Jackman – Jason Tate                                           Gasman – John Eicher                           
Front Tire Changer – John Royer                         Front Tire Carrier – Brett Morrell                          

Rear Tire Changer – Coleman Dollarhide              Rear Tire Carrier – Eric Groen