Photo Credit: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR
Ford Performance NSCS Notes & Quotes:
NASCAR Chase Media Day
Thursday September 17, 2015
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – LETS SAY THAT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU ON THE RESTART LAST WEEKEND HAPPENS AT HOMESTEAD. WHAT DOES NASCAR NEED TO DO BETWEEN NOW AND THEN? “To me, I just say we need to be consistent with the calls. If the call is that you can jump the start that is okay, just let us know. If the call is you can’t jump the restarts, let us know. Obviously there is talk about opening the box and all these other things. It is a tough position for them and I understand where NASCAR is with it. It is a ball and strike call. But baseball does that every week with every pitch. They make a ball and strike call. A lot of times someone isn’t happy about it but if it is something blatantly obvious you have to make the call. You have to do it. It is a tough position for them when you look at angles and when there is a race win or possibly a championship on the line, it could be a lot larger than what happened last weekend. Really all we need to know is what can and can’t we do and be consistent with that. If you can go early, that is okay, we just all need to know that. As the sanctioning body, their job is to create a level playing field. That is their job. We all rely on them to do that and they have to get involved unless we all will take every little bit that is there. Really what we drivers do is we go off the past. We look at what happened in Bristol and we see what happened there with Blaney and the truck race and then we see what happened last week. Now it is like, okay, where do we need to be? We have had a talk with them already so we will wait and see where it goes. I believe it will be fixed and we will be able to race hard and if it comes down to something like that at the end of a race for a championship then I would expect them to stand up and make the call.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THEM ADD AN ELECTRONIC ELEMENT LIKE ON PIT LANE TO MAKE IT MORE BLACK AND WHITE? “Yes, it would help but most of the time when someone jumps a start Ray Charles can see it. It is usually blatant. You guys have watched enough racing to know. I also believe NASCAR has been around long enough to understand what is good and what is not good and they can figure that our fairly quick with the instruments they have now. To your point, I don’t think if you had some data with speeds or better angles to be able to visually see it a little better it wouldn’t hurt.”
DIFFERENT OFFICIALS ARE UP THERE AT BRISTOL FOR THAT TRUCK RACE. “Yeah, but the way I understand it, the decision making committee is fairly large when these decisions are being made. It goes through a lot of different people before they make a call. Whether it is Truck, XFINITY or Cup. It is a similar group of people up there.”
THERE SEEMS TO BE A VAGUENESS OF HOW MUCH THE LEADER CAN ACCELERATE. “Like I said, it is a fine line. Most of the time, let’s be honest, you can jump it by a car length and it is okay but you can’t jump it by four, five or six car-lengths. That is not okay in my opinion. There is always gamesmanship out there and everyone is trying to beat the car next to you or in front of you. The way you do that as the leader pulling up to the line and the second place car is laid back is just as big of an issue as the leader jumping the start because that forces the leader to jump the start when the second place car is laid back so much. The control car is no longer the control car, it becomes the second place car because he controls when the leader can go. Just as important as when the leader takes off is that the second place car is where he is supposed to be, side by side, like they tell us in the drivers meeting every week.”
PASSING SEEMS TOUGHER WITH POWER TAKEN AWAY. HAS THAT MADE RESTARTS EVEN TRICKIER? “The cars are so equally matched that you have to look at the different areas that you can find to excel and beat people. You look at pit road, look at restarts and look at different things. On and off pit road. All those things that can gain spots in a race become very important when the cars are so equally matched. I don’t think it is harder to pass this year than last year to be honest with you, it has always been difficult to pass. We are all within a couple tenths of each other. How do you overtake someone when you are the same speed? You look at alternative ways of doing it.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED … YOU ARE ONE OF THE CONSENSUS PICKS FOR THE FINAL FOUR BY MANY PEOPLE. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A FAVORITE THIS TIME AROUND? “I do personally. I don’t know if anyone else does and I don’t care if anyone else does honestly. I just want to go make it happen. I think last year we proved that we can do it. We got all the way to the final round there and was proud of what my team did. We learned a lot throughout that last week and that valuable experience you can’t put a price tag on. Unfortunately we didn’t win. That was the negative. The positive, which I believe was larger than the negative, is that we learned how to do it. We know what to do now. We won’t go into that race lost. We know what we have to do to win it. We just have to get there first. It is one race at a time to be in that championship and if we get there we will have a better idea of what we need to do.”
DOES HOMESTEAD LINGER IN YOUR MIND? “I guess I would be lying to say it doesn’t but it doesn’t consume me. I am so focused on what the task at hand is that it is hard not to think about it when I get reminded about it a lot. Of course you think about it but I try to look at the silver lining and take the positives out of that weekend. Look at the great things we did that year. It was a real coming out season for us. We did a great job and so far this season we are even better than what we were last year. There is no reason why I don’t feel we can get to that spot again. As we have seen in the Chase last year and years before, but especially with the new format, anything can happen.”
ARE THERE THINGS YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE FORMAT? ANYTHING YOU CAN LEARN THIS YEAR? “You should learn something every day. They teach us that in elementary school right? You should learn something every day to get better. That still applies here in racing and in life. You need to go out there and figure out what we learned last year, what we learned yesterday, last week or in a previous year. That is how you get better. That is why my team is getting better. Everyone asks why we are better this year than last year. I say it is because we have experience. Experience is just learning from your mistakes, becoming a better team and working together even more. I am proud of the effort that everyone puts into that. The easy thing to do after a bad race is to try to forget about it and move on but then you are just going to go to the same place and do it again and try to forget about it and move on and it is a vicious cycle that will never be broken.”
IS THE EXPERIENCE FACTOR WHY 20 YEAR OLD GUYS DON’T USUALLY WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “I think some of it. This whole sport in general is like that though. For me at least, when I started I was really young and really green and put in this whole thing. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into at the time. I look at a lot of rookies that come in and it takes a while to get going and understand what you need at each race track. These guys are really good. Experience at this level outweighs any advantage you have as a younger person with reflexes and all that. The experience is much larger than that. What I like about my position is that I am in my seventh year and still only 25. Hopefully I have both going for me and just have to keep growing. We haven’t won a championship yet. We have to keep growing and doing what we are doing but I like the position that I am in.”
