Logano looking to back up first win of season at Dover
DOVER, DEL. » Last week at Talladega, Joey Logano finally got the monkey off his back.
This week and for every week for the rest of the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series regular season, the driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford can focus on putting himself in better position for the playoffs, starting with Sunday’s AAA Drive For Autism 400 at Dover International Speedway, where he’ll start 18th.
“It felt so good last week to finally break through and get that win; we’d had a few seconds, so to be able to break through…that’s a huge confidence builder for our race team,” said Logano from inside the media center on Friday.
“We’ve always believed that we can do it, and we believe we’re the best race team out there, but when you don’t win, it gets harder and harder to believe that. To be able to go out there and make that happen is a big boost for us. It’s all about carrying that momentum now. We’re in the playoffs, so it’s all about getting as many playoff points as possible, winning the stages, collecting the regular season points and winning some races.”
After collecting 14 wins between the 2014-16 regular season, including a Daytona 500 triumph in 2015 and runner-up finish in the points in 2016, the 27-year-old Middletown, Conn., native took the checkered flag just once last season; however, his victory in the spring race at Richmond was considered an “encumbered” win due to a rules violation, and didn’t count towards an essentially automatic postseason berth.
When last year’s playoffs started, Logano found himself on the outside looking in.
This year? He can breathe easy.
“(Last year) was definitely a time where you can start pointing fingers and saying it’s this or it’s that, and that’s when it’s basically the end of that race team,” Logano said.
“To be able to fight through, you have to stick together. You have to keep working together, you have to keep doing the things you did when you won. But that’s obviously a lot harder when you’re not winning. We stuck together as a team — not just the 22 team, but Team Penske as a whole — and no one at the racetrack was pointing fingers at me or (crew chief) Todd (Gordon) or anybody. We kept digging, we knew we were going to fight through it and we knew we still had the capability to go out there and win races because it was the same group that did.”