Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell\/Pennzoil Ford Fusion, is the defending champion of this weekend\u2019s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and a repeat win would guarantee advancement into the Contender\u2019s Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He visited the infield media center earlier today and talked about a number of topics.<\/p>\n
JOEY LOGANO \u2013 No. 22 Shell\/Pennzoil Ford Fusion \u2013 HOW IS YOUR CONFIDENCE GOING INTO THIS WEEKEND? \u201cI feel pretty good about it. This has been a good race track for us the last couple of years. Obviously, this is my home track so I talk about that a lot when I come up here, but I really want to win here again. I feel like we\u2019re in good position after last week. We had a solid finish and that positioned ourselves pretty good to race fairly aggressive through this race and try to get a win like we did last year.\u201d
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JEFF GORDON BREAKS THE CONSECUTIVE STREAK RECORD THIS WEEKEND. IF YOU GO THE NEXT 15+ YEARS YOU\u2019LL BREAK IT. CAN YOU DO IT? \u201cI\u2019ve got a long ways to go (laughing). Fifteen years. Holy crap. I\u2019m only 25. I guess I have a chance. You never know what\u2019s gonna happen or what life will bring you, but congrats to Jeff for what he\u2019s accomplished. I don\u2019t think people should overlook that. To start that many races consistently is unbelievable, so congrats to Jeff on that. I have a long ways to go. It\u2019s not really on my radar yet, but at least I\u2019m on track and we\u2019ll see what happens (laughing).\u201d<\/p>\n
YOU\u2019VE HAD SOME MOMENTS WITH KEVIN HARVICK IN THE PAST. WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO THE INCIDENT WITH HIM AND JIMMIE LAST WEEK? \u201cI really don\u2019t have much of a reaction to be honest with you. I\u2019m focused on my own thing. It is what it is. That\u2019s what seems to happen in the Chase. Emotions seem to get fired up pretty quick and I don\u2019t really have a reaction. I\u2019m not surprised. I\u2019m not anything. It is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
DO YOU LOOK AT WHERE OTHER DRIVERS ARE AT GOING INTO EACH RACE OF THE CHASE AS A WAY OF UNDERSTANDING HOW THEY MIGHT RACE? \u201cIt\u2019s smart to keep tabs on where everyone is at and what they have to do to get to the next round. Do I think the 4 car has to win one of these next two races? No, I don\u2019t think that. I think you can still get in by points, but you\u2019d have to have two really good races. If he can win, I expect him to be aggressive, but I would expect that before. The way we\u2019ve raced the whole season up to this point was racing with nothing to lose, so we\u2019re kind of used to that a little bit. Now there\u2019s something to lose for some of us, but there are still some cars out there that have nothing to lose and we\u2019ll go for it like we did before, so I wouldn\u2019t expect anything different there.\u201d<\/p>\n
IF HARVICK WAS ELIMINATED IN THIS ROUND, YOU WOULD THINK IT WOULD BENEFIT THE REST OF THOSE WHO ADVANCE BECAUSE THAT\u2019S A BIG THREAT YOU DON\u2019T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT. WOULD THAT BE A BONUS? \u201cIt\u2019s the way this whole playoff Chase system works when you\u2019re knocking out cars. You want to knock out the fastest cars you can. It\u2019s not a bad thing. Obviously, the 4 car is one of the fastest cars every week. They led the points for most of the season, so you know they\u2019ve got speed everywhere they go. I wouldn\u2019t consider them out at this point by no means. They\u2019re still a very strong team and they\u2019ll be up there racing hard and trying to get to the next round, but if we are able to knock them out and able to keep them from winning a race and we focus on our own thing \u2013 that\u2019s the main thing though, as long as we focus on what we need to do whatever happens throughout the rest of this Chase is what it is with everybody else. We just have to make sure we get to Homestead, but if you look at the big picture obviously you want the fastest cars out because it gives you the best chance when you get to Homestead, but I\u2019m not gonna change to do anything different out there. I\u2019ve still got to get myself there. That\u2019s priority one is getting our team to Homestead.\u201d<\/p>\n
YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE JOE GIBBS RACING STREAK RIGHT NOW? \u201cI feel like we\u2019re right there with them. Even last weekend in Chicago, I thought we had a very fast Shell\/Pennzoil Ford that had speed in the car, ran up top-5 all day and had a legit shot at winning. That last restart I felt like we were in position with our four tires and where we were starting, but when you\u2019re racing against four cars that are very, very fast and they\u2019re all pretty equally matched with speed, that\u2019s what kind of makes them look like they\u2019re the next level. It\u2019s not just one car that\u2019s doing it. It\u2019s not two cars that are doing it. It\u2019s all of them, which is impressive. You don\u2019t see many teams that can put four cars together running fast ever, so that\u2019s pretty impressive with what they\u2019re doing there, and obviously I think they\u2019re top-4 in points here right now. They\u2019re strong, but I don\u2019t look at them as stronger than us. They just have more numbers out there. They have more cars and I feel like Team Penske is right where we need to be. I think we\u2019re really close. I think we\u2019re fighting with them every weekend for wins, so I don\u2019t think we have to take a step back and say, \u2018Oh my God, we\u2019re doing something wrong. They\u2019re just so much faster than us.\u2019 They\u2019re not faster than us. There are a lot of circumstances that obviously have to go just right to win these things just like anybody else does, and I feel like we have speed in our race cars so we\u2019re not far off at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASCAR IS MEETING WITH TEAM MANAGERS LATER TODAY TO TALK ABOUT THE RULES PACKAGE FOR NEXT YEAR. DO YOU LEAN ONE WAY OR THE OTHER AS TO WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN 2016? \u201cI would say all of us would like to see the low downforce package. I think everyone wants to see that for \u201916. I know the drivers want to be down that direction. I\u2019m sure you guys have watched the races and have formed your own opinions from it, but from my standpoint I thought the low downforce package put on the best racing. I thought Darlington was one heckuva race and it\u2019s really hard to have a good race there. It\u2019s a tough race track to put on a good race and it\u2019s been quite a few years since we\u2019ve seen a really good race at Darlington, and it was able to do that. Kentucky once again was also a great race, so the two data points that we have from that low downforce package was really good, so I think all of us want to go that direction. There\u2019s obviously a lot of other questions that go along with that. What tire do you match up with it? And other little parts and pieces that have to go along with the package, but I think if you look at the big piece of the puzzle I think everyone wants to go that direction. We\u2019ll see where it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
ARE YOU GOOD WITH THE CURRENT HORSEPOWER? \u201cWhen you take the downforce off you\u2019re also taking a lot of drag off the car, so it makes you feel like you\u2019ve got more horsepower again. It gives you the feeling that the horsepower is almost back to last year before the tapered spacer. It gives you that feeling just because you don\u2019t have that aero drag that\u2019s pulling you back so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE TOP LANE HERE ON STARTS AND RESTARTS IS OBVIOUSLY THE SUPERIOR LANE. HOW DO YOU MAKE THE INSIDE LANE WORK AND HOW MUCH OF A CHALLENGE IS IT TO MAINTAIN OR GAIN ON A RESTART? \u201cI think the lanes are actually more equal here than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n
SIX OF THE SEVEN RESTARTS THE LEADER ON THE OUTSIDE MAINTAINED THE LEAD. \u201cThat might just be for the front row, but as you go a little further back to the second, third, fourth row they seem a little bit more equal from the top to the bottom. But the top lane typically has a good chance to restart well and for some reason have a little bit better momentum through turn one and be able to set yourself up good off of two. What can you do? Hopefully, we all just play by the rules of what NASCAR has laid out for us and hopefully NASCAR enforces that this week. I think that\u2019s what we\u2019re all looking for as drivers is not to be able to lay back. We want to be able to restart where we need to restart and let the control car as the leader be the control car and not the second-place car by laying back.\u201d<\/p>\n
YOU\u2019VE HAD YOUR SITUATIONS WITH KEVIN. IS HE MORE BARK THAN BITE? \u201cI\u2019m staying out of this one. I don\u2019t want to be a part of this one, let me tell you right now. I\u2019m just happy to be out of the drama. I\u2019ve been in it plenty long. I want to be out of the drama and focus on my race car, so sometimes it\u2019s best off just to keep your mouth shut.\u201d<\/p>\n
DID IT FEEL DIFFERENT WHEN YOU GOT TO DIFFERENT STAGES IN THESE CHASE RACES LAST YEAR AND DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE THE SAME OR MORE INTENSE THIS YEAR? \u201cIt does feel different because there\u2019s a lot on the line, but it felt different last week in Chicago. And as much as you try to make it feel like it was the rest of the season and nothing changes and you tell yourself that and you tell your team that, but something does change because it\u2019s the playoffs. It\u2019s gonna get a little bit more intense and there\u2019s a lot more on the line, so it\u2019s gonna feel different and depending on your position after the first two races is going to decide what your intensity level is when you get to Dover or you get to an elimination race. Like I said, hopefully we get through this race well and we can go through Dover and feel comfortable about what we\u2019re doing there and not having much pressure, but it\u2019s one race at a time for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell\/Pennzoil Ford Fusion, is the defending champion of this weekend\u2019s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and a repeat win would guarantee advancement into the Contender\u2019s Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He visited the infield media center earlier today and talked about a number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-nhms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19965,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19964\/revisions\/19965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}