WITH RACE ON EDGE, LOGANO A CUT ABOVE
Driver dominates from pole to earn first victory of season
BROOKLYN, MICH. Joey Logano didn’t realize how close to the ethereal edge he and his Sprint Cup counterparts had ventured until he stopped Friday to sign an autograph after winning the pole for the FireKeepers Casino 400.
“My hand was shaking,” he said with a smile. “I couldn’t even write my name. That’s cool.”
But that’s right where he wanted to be. And so was victory lane. He got there, too, Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, controlling variables and mastering his way in a new aerodynamics package that made things — delightfully, he said — out of control.
For normal or perhaps sensible folk — those who have neither the skill nor the constitution for this kind of work — wishing that a race car reaching speeds in excess of 215 mph be less controllable is seemingly ill-advised. Logano himself deemed it a “recipe for catastrophe” and considered the racing at times out of control Sunday. He said it with that wide grin.
Race teams and manufacturers spend millions of dollars attempting to manhandle every variable in a sport that produces them by the billions. Drivers like a certain amount of chaos in racing, but the high level of self-assurance required for the job leads them to think they are best equipped to exploit the situation.
Logano jokingly questioned his intelligence. But then he made a point, and it made sense within the context of the mind-set a driver must harness beneath the helmet. On the edge of chaos is creativity.
“You know, I think that thrill, the adrenaline that you get by controlling something that’s out of control,” he said. “A lot of times being right on that edge of backing it in the fence when we’ve seen it happening in qualifying and you’re right on that edge.”
Logano led 138 of 200 laps from the pole to win for the first time this season, gaining his entry to the Chase for the Sprint Cup, albeit later than expected for the perennial title contender who won six races last season.
There was intrigue in the pack circumnavigating the 2-mile oval, especially on restarts. Minuscule spoilers made cars harder to handle and had them washing toward the walls or into each other on numerous occasions. There was little drama at the front of it. Logano bore off on multiple restarts, arcing through Turns 1 and 2 better than his pursuers and assuming leads of nearly two seconds. One of his few bobbles was on the first lap of the race when he strayed high toward the wall, but he had regained the front within a few laps. On another, a miscue crew chief Todd Gordon wouldn’t elaborate upon, allowed rookie Chase Elliott to assume the lead.
But overall it was, Gordon said, “a status quo weekend.”
Elliott last led on a lap 153 restart but succumbed to Logano for the final time after stumbling at the green flag.
“I just did something dumb. You can’t do dumb stuff and win these races,” Elliott said.
He likely would not have held the lead much longer anyway considering Logano’s dominance.
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller deemed it “different” but in need of modification as the package is currently slated to be used again only in the July race at Kentucky Speedway. Out of control isn’t exactly what the series is going for, he said, but progress was evident.
Fourth-place finisher and Logano teammate Brad Keselowski said, “(It) wasn’t everything we wanted it to be.” He said sideforce was the next logical area to attack and added, “It’s going to fit all the great drivers.”
As for Logano, he’s back on that invigorating edge.
“I don’t want to drive slow,” he said. “That ain’t no fun. That’s the sport part of this. It should be a challenge. It should be on the edge. It shouldn’t be easy, and at this level it definitely isn’t.”