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NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES: TOYOTA - SAVE MART 350

June 26, 2016

Joey Logano

Sonoma, California

THE MODERATOR: Our third‑place finisher in today's race is Joey Logano and he drives the No.22 Shell‑Pennzoil Ford for Team Penske. Joey, certainly an exciting race out here at Sonoma today, great atmosphere, great crowd, great competition. How did you think the 22 performed? You had a good finish today.
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, we had a hard‑fought third‑place finish today, which there's no easy finish here at Sonoma at any point. Really proud of the effort that we've made here at Sonoma over the last‑‑ not just this race. We did make progress throughout the race, but in the last three years. I think of a couple years ago we had a fast short‑run car and we fell off harder than anybody. Last year we had a slow short‑run car, but a good long‑run car. This year we had a pretty decent car throughout the whole run. It didn't really fall off really hard.
Super proud of the effort that's been put into this racetrack here in Sonoma. This is a nice solid third‑place finish. I thought I could win the race there at the last lap when you are watching those two going into 7 and 11 and you're running third. You think you're in a pretty good spot to win this thing. I'm thinking that they're most likely going to crash each other. It was a fun race to watch. Going into Turn 11 I was 100 percent sure that Denny was not going to win just by watching it, and we were right there on the cusp of trying to sneak one by. It would have been a gift if we got it, but hey, take them anyway you can. But overall, really cool for Tony Stewart. As I said earlier, we're probably witnessing a historic moment right now in NASCAR. It was a really cool thing for Tony to be able to come back and get that win and obviously the same place Kyle did it last year, which is kind of ironic after he was hurt.
I don't know what the deal is with Sonoma, but overall really cool‑‑ like I said, cool to see Tony get that win here when it's much needed. It still shows he's got what it takes if you give him the right stuff, and he's going to push hard when he needs to. I noticed it from lap one. I started right next to him, and he was hammering right off the bat, and I said, all right, so we've got that Tony Stewart today. There's two different ones. It was the aggressive one all day, and obviously we seen that going into Turn 11, so pretty cool, and like I said, overall proud of the effort we put in today.

Q. We've seen some races here where there was caution after caution, a lot of wrecks. Didn't really go that way today. What was that like? Was that just an overall better experience for you and drivers when that isn't going on?
JOEY LOGANO: In all honesty, I think it's because everyone is getting better. A lot of the crashes in the past have been because of cars wheel hopping into the corner and they can't stop and they hit somebody. Most of the time that's what it is. There's still plenty of contact but everyone has gotten better at this road course racing, not just drivers but race teams in getting their cars better and brakes bitter and the setups better, not that the cars have become more easy to drive. They're still very, very challenging to drive here, but it seems like we've all have gotten better and know how to handle a lot of the situations on the racetrack and we've all learned how to race a little bit better out here.
Like I said, still plenty of contact and bumping and banging. My car was hit on each corner, but it definitely was a fun race, and it's always been a fun race here in Sonoma. A lot of tire wear, strategies are all confusing as all get‑out. It always ends up to be a cool race at the end.

Q. Joey, late in the race Tony came over the radio and said, hey, I'm not pissed off at anyone at this point in the race. Can you say that sitting here? Anything happen to you in the race that was frustrating throughout?
JOEY LOGANO: I'm happy. I don't get mad at anyone. Are you kidding me? Glad to be here.
No, I love everyone. I'm a lover.

Q. I'm wondering about the tires; does this road course chew them up more than the ovals, tri‑ovals?
JOEY LOGANO: In different ways, and each track is different. Some tracks you think of repaves, we just came from Michigan, it didn't wear tires at all. If you think of Martinsville or something like that, it's very similar. This racetrack, the surface has aged nicely, you know, and I think the beautiful weather out here allows that, that there's a fair amount of tire wear that tires and pit strategy really come into play a lot, and there wasn't that late‑race caution. There was one with 20 something to go, but if there was one with 10 to go, it would have been pretty interesting or even with five to go it would have been pretty interesting to see what would happen. It's nice that the track has the ability to do that. The tire falls off depending on what the track surface is, not because it's a road course or compared to ovals. It's just because the track surfaces. It's wore in, and that's what we all love about it, and that's what we all like about wore‑out surfaces.
THE MODERATOR: Joey, thank you very much, and good luck the rest of the season.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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