NASCAR CUP SERIES: QUAKER STATE 400 AVAILABLE AT WALMART

September 8, 2024

Joey Logano

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We have our race-winning driver, Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford.

We will start with questions.

Q. One of the first things you said was, When it's Playoff time, it's our time. What gives you that confidence? What makes you so certain when this time of the season hits, you're going to step it up a notch?

JOEY LOGANO: It just seems like we do it. We just do. More times than not, excluding last year really, we've been able to level up when we need to level up. To be able to fire off your first race of the Playoffs with a statement win, it's key, right?

We all talked about how wild card this round could be. We knew that the Penske cars would be strong on the superspeedway style type racetracks. We've been all year long. Unfortunately we've been caught up in every possible wreck on these type of tracks.

It's nice to finally capitalize on the laps led, being towards the front, having a teammate lined up behind me there. He scored a ton of points today, too, being up there. A good day for Team Penske all the way through. Cindric did, too. A really special day for Penske to be able to score some good points and set themselves up pretty good for the Round of 12.

Q. How different is that situation as the leader if it's not a teammate behind you? Is it a completely different thought process?

JOEY LOGANO: I probably still choose the bottom lane. Things could have looked differently. I think we still would have been in pretty good shape. I'd have to go back and really rewatch it to know for sure.

The push he gave me down the frontstretch, taking the white, was a key move to be able to do that. I think that was a big help. That was probably the biggest help of the whole thing.

Blaney has been a fantastic teammate. We've worked together for years now. It's nice, for so many years we've talked about a lot of scenarios. We've been through a lot of different scenarios at the end of these races. Some we've done really well, like today, sometimes we've messed up, both of us.

The good thing is we were able to talk about it all the time and be able to get better. That's just really what you want in a teammate out there. It goes back and forth. Sometimes you're the one in Victory Lane, sometimes you're not. Luckily today we were in the right spot.

Q. Even with him behind you, when you have teammates lined up to your outside, is there anything you can do to counter that?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of prep, a lot that goes into making sure you get the push at the right time. The part that concerned me a little bit is they attached a little better than us on on the outside lane. We were able to stay attached good down the backstretch which was able to push me clear, just barely. I think the 1 got loose there. If it wasn't for that, we would have been side by side. I don't know if it would have looked the same.

They did a good job of executing that. I knew the one difference there is you had their car that was in the Playoffs in the front. You knew Ross was just not going to make the move. There's definitely a little bit more I don't know what you want to call it, commitment there I guess. You have one car that really matters. For both me and Ryan, the win was huge for both of us. That changes the game a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, they did a good job up there, too.

Q. On the radio you said, Let's do the plan we talked about on the bus. What is the plan you talked about?

JOEY LOGANO: I can't tell you (smiling). I'm not going to tell you. Nothing against you, I just wouldn't tell anybody.

Like I said, we go over a lot of stuff together. We prep a lot together, separately and together sometimes. Speedway racing these days, it's just so interesting. Every track is a little bit different, Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, all kind of a breed of their own. When you have fast cars like we do right now on these speedways, it's important for to us capitalize as a team.

These are our bread and butter right now. We've proven that really over the last year plus, that this is our type of racetrack.

To be able to make sure that a Penske car wins is very important for our organization right now.

Q. Coming into the start, you have Blaney behind you, do you feel this is your race to win or lose, all the advantage is on your side?

JOEY LOGANO: I did. I really felt like when we were in the lead coming to take the white, and the caution came out when we were up top there, side by side behind me, at that point I said, I really think I got it won. At that point I thought everything was going to go pretty good the next lap. Keep them two-wide for another lap. I felt pretty good about that.

When the caution came out, it was like with restarts, things change. Fuel, wasn't really much in there. It was fairly empty. It all ended up working out. You start getting restart after another green-white-checkered, all of a sudden you're out of gas. You have a day that looks like you can win or score a ton of points to running out of gas. Could be that quick.

Taking the white was key for us. This was a base hit type of race, right? Man, you take a fifth out of today, you feel pretty good about it. Feel better taking a win, but that's kind of what this racetrack is about.

Q. Can you talk about the range of emotions. You're knocked out a year ago in round one. This year you come back and you guarantee in the first race you're going to round two. What is that like emotionally?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I move on pretty quick. To be honest with you, when we got knocked out of the Playoffs last year, it hurt a lot. It stings the rest of the Playoffs every time you show up to the racetrack and you're not in it. It hurts. It's really frustrating. You just get mad. You just live mad for a little bit.

That's just what's Playoffs are, right? That's what drives you, motivates you to be better 'cause you don't want the pain. You also want the thrill of the victory at the end.

This is a good start, for sure.

Q. Kyle Petty called you a big-game, big-moment driver. Paul said a lot of that comes back to your mental game. What is it in you that lets you continue to step up in these big moments?

JOEY LOGANO: I don't know. I don't know exactly what it is. I think some people are kind of born a certain way, like very competitive people. There's times that that bites me as much as it helps me (smiling).

Yeah, I feel like for whatever reason there's always another gear in there. I try to reach it every race, but it just seems like the Playoffs seem to work for us as a team.

I wouldn't say it's just me, right? Our whole team really does a good job at thriving in these scenarios. Talked a little bit earlier today about their work ethic, their experience level, this race team. When we go into the Playoffs, it doesn't really affect us much, right?

Sometimes pressure can either make you crack and fall apart or it's going to make you better, right? For us, it seems like with the experience that we have and the been there, done that, we just kind of know how to handle it.

There's a long ways to go in this Playoffs. I don't want to get stuck on saying, We won the first one, it's going to be a cake from here. It's not going to be easy from here. This is just an ability to breathe for two weeks as we try to get some Playoff points.

Q. What have you done around this weekend as far as with your foundation and what was that like being able to celebrate with you in Victory Lane?

JOEY LOGANO: It was a very special week for a lot of reasons. I got to go to the Shaw Air Force base on Friday afternoon and drove down there with my wife. Friends of ours that I got to meet are getting deployed. They have a ball. I got to go down there and talk to them. I have a lot of relationships there. It was really cool to do that.

That was kind of the first special thing that happened. I got here midnight by the time I landed here on Friday night. They told me to go win, so I'm glad I held up that end of the bargain.

Then the JL Kids Crew, they're kids that have been through a lot in their lives. They're huge race fans, especially 22 fans. These kids have been through more than you can ever imagine. That whole program started from a little guy named Jake Leatherman. He passed away unfortunately. We met his family and went to his funeral. It was amazing. Maybe some of you here were actually there at that funeral.

But there's a ton of race team guys that showed up in their race suits. He was a little kid, but he was a huge race fan. We all showed up there. I thought what a shame. I left there kind of mad because we didn't meet him when he was with us. That's where the JL Kids Crew started years ago. We've been giving these amazing experiences to these kids.

Unfortunately I never made it happen on the racetrack when they were here. To see them celebrating together in Victory Lane, that was really neat.

They told me I better win. Quite the threat. I'm glad that worked out (smiling).

Q. When you come onto this property, is there one fond memory that strikes you first?

JOEY LOGANO: There's a lot. There's a lot of memories here. More memories at this racetrack than anywhere I've ever been.

I remember the first time pulling in here was in '99. We were moving from Connecticut, trying to figure out where we wanted to live. We drove by Atlanta Motor Speedway. Let's pull in.

I remember we drove in, all of us in a motorhome traveling across the country, figuring this whole thing out. We drove through the tunnel. Oh, my God, this place is incredible. Never been to a track like this before. At the time I was racing quarter midgets.

We met Ken Ragan, David Ragan's dad here at Legends of Georgia.

Why don't you race a Bandolero tonight.

Okay, sure, we'll race tonight. That's the way we did it. We ran the race. Ended up buying the car. We'll be back. We moved down here six months later. The car was still sitting in the shed and I started racing here.

Those memories with my parents, my sister, there's more stories than I can mention here. The dream of driving on that quarter mile thinking I want to go straight one day and get on the big track.

Pulling into Victory Lane here is obviously one of the most special things to really put all that together.

Definitely a lot of fun stories. We've been thrown out of here a few times. But they can't throw me out today. Ha-ha (laughter).

Q. Another special chapter in the memories you have of this place.

JOEY LOGANO: Absolutely.

Q. I don't know how you're going to file this one away, but...

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I'd say the first time I won here was probably the most special one, last year. My dad being here, we celebrated in Victory Lane, the front straightaway together. That was a really cool moment. There are a lot of moments on the start/finish line before.

I'll tell you a fun story because you're asking for stories. We came here, this was years ago, Roush gave me a Cup car to do laps. This is before I signed with Gibbs. 2004, I was 14. We would just go make laps at local short tracks just for fun. We'd go testing with Mark Martin. It was the coolest thing in the world.

A friend of ours was testing a Porsche for the Rolex 24, running the road course here.

Do you mind if we make some laps while you're not on the road course?

Absolutely, no problem.

We called Ed Clark at the time, running the track. Can we make some laps?

Yeah, sure.

They thought we were racing Legends car. They thought we were going to run laps on the quarter mile. They were like, Sure, okay.

We unloaded a Cup car. They didn't like that. That wasn't too cool in their book. They gave me this lap time that I couldn't exceed, and it was a very slow lap time. I had to run a fast corner and that's it.

I remember it was right before the lunch. My dad goes, Screw it, Joe. Just go. They're going to throw us out. I don't care. Just go. They're going to black flag you. Just go until it runs out of gas.

This is how I grew up. Explains a lot for you guys. I did that, and we got thrown out. It was a really cool memory.

Q. He called you 'Joe'?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, a lot of times. I was 14. We were ripping, too. It was fun. It was really cool.

Q. You lived in a condo?

JOEY LOGANO: 805.

Q. What made you want to live in a condo?

JOEY LOGANO: We had a race shop down the road from here. Our late model was there. Jim Gresham owned our late model. I drove for him. His grandkid raced. He raced, too. Stored all our stuff there. We lived here a lot.

Our house was actually in Alpharetta. That's an hour plus from here. We stayed here a lot.

Q. (No microphone.)

JOEY LOGANO: There was. Me and my dad were here 90% of the time. Yeah, ended up being here.

Plenty of times after a race, the memories come flooding back to you, to see the post race interviews like this, we'd be watching it from whatever closed network cameras up in the condos afterwards. It's cool sitting here thinking about that. Maybe someone up there is watching right now. Kind of cool.

Q. Do you consider this a superspeedway? Does your feeling about superspeedway racing that has been frustrating, did this alleviate any of them?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, man, I consider it a superspeedway. It's a pretty unique one 'cause it can kind of -- sometimes you can think it's like the old 550 days where you lift a lot more than normal.

I mean, superspeedway racing is a lot of fun until it's not. It's actually really entertaining, even from inside the car. The chess match that it is, trying to outsmart your competitors, it's really fun until you just wreck. Then you're like, Man, this sucks. There's no better way of saying it. It's just great until it's not. It seemed like today there wasn't any real big pileups, which is nice.

It's intense out there for sure. There's not a moment through those 400 miles where you take a break. It's just crazy the whole time.

Q. To the naked eye it didn't look like handling was as big of a deal as it probably felt. People were able to maintain position three-wide in two. Was the handling much more than what it looked like to the naked eye? Was it because of fuel saving you were able to stay so tight?

JOEY LOGANO: There's times the leaders were saving fuel, which keeps the pack a lot tighter. You kind of have the pace, a half second or slower a lap, that allows everyone to stay tight.

The teams keep making their cars better, right? I remember the first time we came here, it was very separated because everybody was out of control. The teams are getting smarter. The cars are driving better.

There's a lot of moving around out there. To say handling great, it is not quite the case. Quite a bit of lifting moments, cars sliding up the racetrack. I even made a mistake at the end of the second stage, got into the 38. Didn't mean to. The nose takes off, poof, it just goes.

It's incredible we don't wreck more than we do. I can tell you that much. It's absolutely amazing how good everybody is. If you see it from my view, which you get to with in-car camera, but it's different when you're in the car and see it happening because it's real for me (smiling). It's surprising a lot that we make it to the end.

Q. On the closing laps, were you anticipating a crash? When it came out, what were your thoughts?

JOEY LOGANO: You never really anticipate a wreck. We got pretty far down into the very end of that race. You think, Okay, we're looking like we may finish this thing coming to the white flag. You race as if you're going to go to the end.

But I'm also not surprised that the caution come out. That's what happens at the end of these races more times than not. I was just glad there wasn't another one. I don't think we had many more in the tank.

Q. You punched your ticket to the next round. Your thoughts on advancing?

JOEY LOGANO: It's a good start. A long ways to go, like I said. The five Playoff points are really nice. That's going to help us through the next couple rounds. But there's a lot of racing ahead of us, a lot more to do.

It's a good start, but a long ways to go.

Q. When you lined up for the final restart, was that Coleman that came on the radio and said his study had shown you needed to take the inside lane?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, Coleman and I go through a lot of stuff. Coleman does a fantastic job at understanding the draft. He's the best on the roof, there's no doubt about it. He's also the best for me because we have a great relationship, right? Coleman was the best man at my wedding. We know each other really, really well off the racetrack as much as we do on the racetrack.

Naturally we talk a lot during the week about what we're going to do in those scenarios. I trust his studying sometimes even more than my studying when we get back and talk about it together.

Yeah, he's a great racer. He gets it. He understands it. He tells me what I need to hear, not just from a racing perspective, what lanes are moving, those type of things, but also what makes me tick and where he knows where my head is at sometimes. He straightens me up sometimes. It's nice to have a friend up there that's able to help guide you.

Q. Does he study video or the track?

JOEY LOGANO: I think these days most people use SMT to be able to study a lot. There's videos, as well. Pretty much any resource that we have is what we try to go through.

Coleman just gets it. He gets the strategy. He gets the racing side. He was a great driver, on the verge of making it himself as a driver. I think anytime you can have that trust and that experience on the roof, that's a no-brainer.

It took me years to want to do that because I didn't want to ruin our friendship because that meant more to me than what we do on the racetrack. I don't think you can ask for a better friend. It took a while to come up with the guts of risking that. Sure glad we did.

Q. Christopher Bell was talking about the most fun he's ever had on a superspeedway. Does that surprise you that someone can be sad about losing but had a blast during this race?

JOEY LOGANO: I think people like racing. We all do this because we like racing. We like to drive fast. I enjoy it for the most part.

For me, honestly, I don't do this for fun. I do it to win. We do it to make money, right? That's what we do. To put championships and get trophies. That's why we do it.

I will say that the reason why we all started is because we like to go fast, we like to compete against each other and race. That part is always down in your heart. It's no different when I get home during the week, the one thing I want to do is go ride my quad, race go-karts. We still enjoy that. It's still fun to have that in your heart. Nothing's changed since I was a kid. You still end up liking this stuff a lot.

Q. Talking about the memories of racing here, have you ever had an inkling to go up to the condo and knock on the door and check the place out where you lived?

JOEY LOGANO: I really want to do that. I've thought about it a lot, to go up there and just knock on the door. I always thought it was kind of weird to do. Somebody just knocked on your door, I used to live here, can I see what it looks like now? I feel like that's kind of weird to do, but I never did it. I talked about it a lot.

Maybe next time I'll just do it, knock on the door and check it out. I would be weirded out if someone did that at my house. I don't know, did you really? How do I know you're not casing my house? That's where my head goes (smiling).

Q. (No microphone.)

JOEY LOGANO: Take a selfie with Bob and you'll get in.

Q. (No microphone.)

JOEY LOGANO: I'm okay with it. I just don't believe in luck ever or just weird things like that. I think it's just a coincidence that it's like that. I hope it's right this year. We'll see (smiling).

It doesn't just come automatic because that's what the numbers have been and the pattern that's been shown over the last whatever it's been, 10 years.

I don't know. I hope it's right, though.

Q. Blaney got in the wreck earlier. Were you worried with him lining up behind you, maybe he wouldn't be able to get to you because he had damage?

JOEY LOGANO: I didn't have any concerns because he drove through the whole field, back through there, right? We were sitting there fourth kind of saving fuel a little bit. He just kept squeaking through the middle. Next thing you know, he was right behind me.

I wasn't concerned about his speed or handling at that point. She was ripping. It seems like he can put it wherever he wants to put it.

Q. Some guys said the track looked grayer than in the spring, maybe it aged. What do you think? Is it already wearing out? Maybe they have to take the plates off at some point?

JOEY LOGANO: We're a long ways from that. I don't know if we ever will because the banking they have this year is ridiculous. So much banking around this place right now. I don't think we're close to being able to take the plates off or going to the other package yet. I'm sure they're not even thinking about it because the racing seems to be pretty entertaining. I would assume it's going to stay this way.

But it definitely will affect the decision-making process as the track wears. This is the speedway that you have to weigh out mechanical grip, downforce versus drag, all those type of things that you have to kind of make those right decisions more, whereas Daytona, Talladega is more just geared to making your car go fast in a straight line.

This place has got a little bit of both and makes it a little challenging. As it wears out, it's going to go more towards the best-handling cars will win. Even today, as much as we lift, the best-handling cars end up there.

Q. Is it a leap or fair to say this has characteristics of old Daytona?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, it's just like it. It's a lot like old Daytona, without the huge swells in the middle of the corner like it used to have there, and the tire falloff. That's what Daytona used to have.

It's more like the old Daytona than the new Daytona is right now.

THE MODERATOR: Joey, congratulations. Thanks for coming in.

JOEY LOGANO: Thanks guys.