News

THE RACE

The NRA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (1.5-mile speedway), Fort Worth, Texas
April 13, 2013

THE RESULTS

The No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion
Start Position: 42 
Finish Position: 5
Status: Running
Current Championship Position: 9

THE RACE REVIEW

· Joey Logano qualified the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion in the 18th position for Saturday night’s race.

· Logano had to start from the tail of the field for being late to the starting grid following issues on the car in the tech line. Logano took the green flag from the 42nd position.

· The Shell-Pennzoil Ford steadily worked its way forward all race long.  By lap 40, Logano was positioned just outside of the top 20.  At lap 100, he was inside the top-20 and he cracked the top-15 200 laps into the event.

· Logano was running 13th when a round of green-flag pit stops began late in the race. Before Logano came to pit road, the caution flag flew and Logano was able to secure great track position as he restarted the race in fourth place.

· Late in the race, Logano ran as high as third before eventually falling back to fifth at the checkered flag. It marked Logano’s second top-five finish in the last three races and the result allowed him to move up two positions to ninth in the point standings.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING

“It was one of the toughest races I think we’ve ever dealt with and to come home with a top five out of something like that, we couldn’t be more excited about that.  It was almost a third-place finish there if the last caution had come out, but these guys worked really hard on this Shell-Pennzoil Ford on getting us out at least to race.  We dug our way up there a little bit and had a bad stop and went down a lap.  We got our ‘lucky dog’ and slowly and methodically worked our way up.  I thought after practice that we might have an eighth- to 10th-place car and that’s pretty much what we had, but it’s always better to finish better than what you think you had, so I’m very happy with the way the guys kept digging today.” – Joey Logano on the result in Texas

“These guys dug really, really hard all day to get this Shell-Pennzoil Ford on the race track.  (Crew Chief) Todd Gordon did a great job keeping everyone under control and not getting overwhelmed by everything.  He focused in and made his adjustments and got our car a lot better than what it was.  If you would have told me I’d finish fifth today, I’d have given you a hug.  I’m pumped up about our finish and the way we got that.” – Logano on the effort by the Shell-Pennzoil Ford crew