Ford Performance NASCAR: Joey Logano Michigan Press Conference

Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Pure Michigan 400 Advance – Michigan International Speedway
Friday, August 11, 2017

Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion, needs a victory to qualify for this year’s NASCAR Playoffs. A two-time winner here at Michigan International Speedway, Logano stopped by the infield media center after practice to discuss his chances for a third.

JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – WHAT IS IT ABOUT MICHIGAN THAT SUITS YOU? “I think it’s a lot of different things. It’s always a lot of fun, particularly on restarts there’s a lot to take advantage of, there’s a lot of opportunity that arises in those moments. It showed again in the spring when we were able to drive up to third with a car that wasn’t quite as good as a third-place car was, so we’ll try to be better this time. I think our car to start off has been substantially better than the last time we were here, so we made some good gains. It looks like our teammate has some good speed, so we’re hoping to try to turn some things around here and get our third win here at Michigan.”

HOW DO YOU NOT GET DESPERATE AND HOW MUCH OF THIS WEEKEND IS IMPORTANT TO PULL IT OFF? “I think you do get a little bit desperate. You’ve got to win. There is no second option, so the intensity is very, very high. You have to be on point all the time. Every change has to be a good one. Every lap has to be a good one. Every moment becomes more and more important on the race track and that’s OK. That’s where you find out what you’re made out of, so I’m all right with that. That’s basically what it’s like for every driver that makes the playoffs and every team that makes the playoffs. They have to be better than what they were all year long to get to Homestead and race for a championship, so we’re starting that a little bit sooner because we have to. The weekend itself, during practice that intensity is up throughout the whole weekend. It’s not just the race itself. From when you start to think about what you’re gonna do here at Michigan on Monday all the way through the week, there are a lot of thoughts going through your mind.”

HOW DIFFERENT IS BRISTOL NEXT WEEK? “We’ll have a different car. We don’t really ever turn around a car week to week, not at Team Penske. That’s a lot to ask for to turn the car around. These cars are scheduled out months ahead of where they’re gonna go and everything because it’s not just one car, you’ve got your backup cars and all that. When you go through teams, you’re trying to get everything ready for and the schedule becomes very important of where these cars are going to be placed out and strategically placed out in certain ways to make sure we have the best cars when we go to the race track. What we run here at Michigan body spec-wise is pretty similar, but obviously the setup and everything underneath the car is completely different.”

ARE YOU EXCITED TO BE A DAD SOON? “I’m ready this book that Brad bought me called Dude You’re Gonna Be a Dad. It’s actually been pretty accurate so far. It takes you through the pregnancy stages of what your wife is going through and that’s been pretty accurate, but as far as the baby part I haven’t got to that part of the book. Beside that, we’ve painted the room. We’ve got a crib. We’ve got the stuff. We did the registering, which was way more than I ever thought it would be and harder than I thought it would be. They gave us two scanners and I was over in the corner scanning all the toys. ‘Cool, a dump truck. He needs a dump truck.’ She’s over there figuring out the bottles and I was like, ‘Well, maybe I should go back over there.’ So it’s gonna be fun, but, really, you don’t know what you don’t know sometimes. Just like when I started Cup racing. I didn’t know what I was doing and this is gonna kind of be the same thing. I don’t know if any parent really knows exactly what they’re doing the first time they had a kid, I don’t think. We’re gonna figure it out on our own. We are starting to schedule to go to classes and CPR classes and that type of stuff to make sure we don’t kill the kid. We don’t want to do that. We don’t know what we’re doing (laughing). It’s confusing. How much do you feed him? We’ve got to learn all that stuff.”

HAVE YOU HAD TO GO ON ANY CRAVING ERRANDS? “Ice cream. Ice cream is the fix all. And it’s a different flavor of ice cream a lot of times, so that’s the go-to for her, which is OK because I end up eating a lot of the ice cream, too. (laughing)”

COULD THERE BE A BETTER STRETCH OF RACE TRACKS FOR YOU COMING UP? “Probably not. Those are really good race tracks for us. Michigan, we’ve proven that we can run well here. Bristol is probably one of our best race tracks as well, especially in the fall race. The track is definitely different from the spring to the fall because there are so many different cars running on it, so it changes it up. Richmond, we’ve shown we can win there a couple times. I feel good about that. Darlington is probably the one that stands out to me that might be a little bit more challenging, but it’s because we haven’t won there is the only reason. We’ve had some top fives and run up front there, so I don’t look at that race track and say we don’t have a chance. I feel like we’ll still be fine there, it just might be a little bit different. I think short tracks are a good place for myself and the 22 team in the past, so I look forward to those races coming up, but I’m mainly focused on this weekend obviously.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS DOING THINGS LIKE MOVIES THAT REGULAR FANS CAN IDENTIFY WITH? “I think they’re important for a lot of different reasons. Yes, for one like you said, kind of personality but you’re acting so it’s a little bit not your personality because you’re acting as someone else most of the time. But I think on a bigger scale it’s important for our sport to do things like that. We’re reaching out to possibly non-fans of our sport and when they watch a movie like that and they see a lot of racing and NASCAR stuff, maybe they become a fan. Maybe it brings them to one race and a lot of times when someone goes to a race they get hooked, so maybe it helps kind of draw that stuff up. So anytime we can do things that are outside of the typically race market are things that I get really excited about because not only are you growing your own brand personally, you’re growing the brand of the sport and ultimately that helps everybody.”

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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