Logano Plagued With Electrical Issues at Martinsville
April 8, 2013
THE RACE
The STP Gas Booster 500 at Martinsville Speedway (.0.526-mile oval, Ridgeway, Va.)
Sunday, April 7, 2013
THE RESULTS
No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion driven by Joey Logano
Starting Position: 4
Finishing Position: 23
Status: Running
Current Championship Position: 11
THE RACE REVIEW
· Joey Logano qualified the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion in the fourth position on Friday afternoon.
· Logano was able to run inside the top 10 for the first part of the race despite battling a tight-handling condition that the team fought throughout the afternoon.
· The team struggled through the middle portion of the race, still battling the tight condition on the Shell-Pennzoil Ford. However, once crew chief Todd Gordon made some changes, the handling improved on the No. 22 and Logano found himself back inside the top 10.
· On lap 384, Logano’s day took a turn for the worse, as electrical issues began to plague the Shell-Pennzoil team. With the car’s battery going dead, Logano was forced to turn off all switches to help save voltage. With no blowers on the tires and brakes, the No. 22 car ran very tight and Logano slipped from the 10th to the 24th position, eventually losing a lap.
· Over the final few laps, Logano couldn’t catch a caution to get back on the lead lap and he eventually finished 23rd.
· With Sunday’s finish, Logano is now ranked 11th in the series standings.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
“I’ll be glad to get out of Martinsville and head to Texas. We just didn’t have anything go right today for our Shell-Pennzoil Ford. I felt this morning that we had a top-10 car and once we were able to get the car dialed in about halfway through the race, I felt like we were back to where we should be. If we were just able to avoid the problems we ran into during the race, I think we could have come out of here with a top 10 for sure. Now, I’m just ready to get out of here and head to Texas.” – Joey Logano on Sunday’s result
“I’m not sure what happened to the battery. We are going to go back and try to figure it out. We just lost power and had to switch to both batteries and turn off a bunch of switches to keep the voltage at a manageable level. That hurt us in the long run. I just hope we can get past these mechanical issues and get back to racing up front.” – Joey Logano on the battery issues on the No. 22 car