{"id":1646,"date":"2016-04-01T23:43:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T04:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2016-04-01T23:43:35","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T04:43:35","slug":"joey-logano-earns-third-straight-nascar-pole-at-martinsville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/01\/joey-logano-earns-third-straight-nascar-pole-at-martinsville\/","title":{"rendered":"Joey Logano earns third straight NASCAR pole at Martinsville"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARTINSVILLE, Virginia – Joey Logano<\/strong> won his third straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series<\/a> pole today at Martinsville Speedway.\u00a0 In addition, this marks the seventh straight race he\u2019s qualified sixth or better at the half-mile track.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a look at his last seven qualifying efforts: 1st (2016); 1st and 1st (2015); 2nd and 3rd (2014); 6th and 4th (2013).<\/p>\n

\"Joey

Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, poses with the Coors Light Pole Award after qualifying for pole position for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on April 1, 2016 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

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POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT<\/em><\/p>\n

JOEY LOGANO \u2013 No. 22 Shell\/Pennzoil Ford Fusion<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 \u201cFirst off, anytime you can tie Jeff Gordon with a record that he\u2019s got here at Martinsville makes me feel good.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know that was up for grabs today, but it\u2019s nice to be able to at least get close to something he\u2019s done here.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is we don\u2019t have one of those trophies yet.\u00a0 We\u2019ve figured out the qualifying part really well, but we really want to be able to win this race.\u00a0 This is something we\u2019ve been really close to and we have a little extra motivation coming up here this week to really show what we\u2019re made of, so it\u2019s nice to be able to come up here and do what we know how to do, execute qualifying like we know how to at this race track.\u00a0 Ever since we unloaded this morning it\u2019s been top of the board.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fast race car.\u00a0 We knew that.\u00a0 We just had to keep our heads in the game and do what we know how to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Joey

Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, poses with the Coors Light Pole Award after qualifying for pole position for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on April 1, 2016 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/NASCAR via Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING ABLE TO WIN THREE STRAIGHT POLES AND BEING FAST ON SUNDAY?\u00a0 HOW DIFFERENT IS IT?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a lot different and here probably more than most race tracks because you think about going fast here for one lap and going fast here for 500 laps.\u00a0 You need a car that\u2019s fast at lap 400.\u00a0 If we did what we did today, it wouldn\u2019t make it.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I would make it.\u00a0 I know after five laps I\u2019m breathing so hard inside this car.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why qualifying at Martinsville gets me more than anywhere else we go.\u00a0 It gets the adrenaline going for sure, but it\u2019s just such a razor\u2019s edge that you\u2019re running on and in the race you can\u2019t really do that because your tires would wear out so quick.\u00a0 You may be fast for a few laps for sure, but it would fall off pretty hard.\u00a0 You definitely have to change your whole mindset when you go from qualifying to race trim here, probably more than most places.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Joey

Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, signs the Coors Light Pole Award backdrop after qualifying for pole position for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on April 1, 2016 in Martinsville, Virginia. Photo by Sean Gardner\/NASCAR via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

OBVIOUSLY WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR HERE WAS A BIG TOPIC.\u00a0 WAS THE KENSETH DEAL ON YOUR MIND?\u00a0 DOES THAT PLAY INTO THE MOTIVATION HERE?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTo be quite honest with you it\u2019s hard erase it from your mind.\u00a0 It happened.\u00a0 It\u2019s in the past though, but it is something that drives you.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to use things like that to motivate you \u2013 not only you and your team.\u00a0 I think re-watching the race and stuff like that, if that doesn\u2019t give you a little fire, nothing does.\u00a0 I know I felt really excited and really pumped up and jacked up to come to this race track and show what we\u2019re made out of.\u00a0 This is a good start.\u00a0 Qualifying here is more important than any other race track we go to.\u00a0 Having a good pit stall pays a lot here because you\u2019re coming down pit road so many times, so I think it pays really big here.\u00a0 And also starting up front allows you to save your car, like we talked about earlier.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a good start for sure.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got 500 laps to go and we\u2019ve got a couple practice sessions tomorrow in between.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Joey

Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, drives during qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on April 1, 2016 in Martinsville, Virginia. Photo by Matt Sullivan\/NASCAR via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

WHEN DID YOU RE-WATCH THE RACE?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cLast night.\u00a0 I went to sleep not very happy (laughing), but ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

DID YOU HAVE ANY BRAKE ISSUES?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cBrakes are something you always think about at Martinsville.\u00a0 You\u2019re using them 1,000 times.\u00a0 You\u2019re stopping twice a lap, and you\u2019re on them hard.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to really slow down for these sharp, flat corners.\u00a0 It\u2019s always a fine line, but the brake companies these days do such a great job giving us something that we can abuse for quite a long time throughout a race.\u00a0 But the fact of the matter is if you go a little bit too much they heat up, they start burning up, you\u2019re putting heat into your tires through the rotors, so there\u2019s a certain way you obviously don\u2019t want to go to much with it and it\u2019s just knowing when to push and when not to.\u201d<\/p>\n

IS LAST YEAR THAT BIG OF A MOTIVATOR?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIt is a motivator.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt and as an athlete you should use things to motivate you.\u00a0 You should use things to fire you up.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I think drives people to work harder and to have that right attitude.\u00a0 That drive is something I\u2019ve learned there\u2019s another step inside of me that day and being able to reach that and achieve that on a consistent basis is something I find very important to reach, so I definitely used that.\u00a0 I use it as something that was a good thing that day.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to take something good out of that day, but I found something that I feel like was larger than a championship in my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

IS THERE A COMMON THREAD YOU\u2019VE FOUND AS A TEAM HERE IN QUALIFYING?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s teamwork.\u00a0 I know that\u2019s a clich\u00e9 answer, but it really is because the driver can\u2019t do it on his own and the car and team can\u2019t do it on their own.\u00a0 Everybody has to work together as one team out there.\u00a0 Todd and I really spent a lot of time understanding why we\u2019ve been fast here.\u00a0 In the past, you wonder why you weren\u2019t.\u00a0 You make a little gain here, a little gain here, and eventually it\u2019s like, \u2018OK, all the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together.\u2019\u00a0 You just keep finding a piece everywhere and you start to make something out of it and we really understand why we go fast, and that\u2019s the most important thing.\u00a0 You can hit on something every now and again by accident, but you\u2019re not gonna do that over and over again if you don\u2019t understand why you\u2019re doing it and I think that\u2019s something our team has done a great job is really understanding why we do certain things to our race car or why I drive the car a certain way \u2013 really communicating that to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

DO YOU HAVE ANY ISSUES THAT THE TRACK USED LAST YEAR\u2019S INCIDENT AS A PROMOTIONAL TOOL.\u00a0 DO YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEM WITH THAT?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t blame them.\u00a0 They\u2019re trying to sell tickets, right?\u00a0 In my eyes, is it great racing that happened?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Did it draw a lot of attention to the speedway?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 If I ran the race track would I do that, and I have to put myself in his shoes?\u00a0 Yeah, I would.\u00a0 I get it.\u00a0 I remember going to Dover after we flipped there eight times and looking at the program and they had one of those that move and it had the Monster with my car in its hand and every time you moved it, it slammed it into the ground.\u00a0 I was like, \u2018Wow, that kind of sucks from my point of view,\u2019 but to everyone else they probably thought that was a big moment in that race.\u00a0 Sometimes you can\u2019t look at everything through your lens particularly, you\u2019ve got to look through other people\u2019s lenses and look at a bigger picture and a little bigger scope than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED — YOU AND BRAD WORKED TOGETHER LAST YEAR ON RESTART, LETTING ONE OR THE OTHER IN.\u00a0 IS THAT SOMETHING YOU CAN DO AGAIN THIS TIME AROUND?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s something that every teammate does out there.\u00a0 It\u2019s something that may be more obvious to most right now because I felt like the two Penske cars were the best cars here in the fall, so we were both up front a lot and doing that.\u00a0 I feel like it worked out pretty smooth every time, to be honest with you.\u00a0 The way I looked at it is either one of us was able to come down in front.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t really check up the field much.\u00a0 I thought that was pretty smooth.\u00a0 I can count a ton of times I\u2019ve seen Hendrick cars do it or Gibbs cars do it.\u00a0 Everybody does it.\u00a0 That\u2019s part of it because you get stuck on the outside lane and it\u2019s brutal.\u00a0 I was watching the race last night and they replayed the spotters trying to get a driver down and how intense that spotter is trying to yell at their driver to get in that hole.\u00a0 That\u2019s how much it means to get to the bottom.\u00a0 That\u2019s why when you\u2019re with your teammate and you have the opportunity to work together it really helps because you can be a winning car and you start second or fourth and you go back to sixth or seventh it takes a whole run to get back to where you started.\u00a0 That\u2019s why getting down to the bottom and working these restarts in the right way is so important to even have a car to race at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

SO YOU WOULD RATHER BE FIFTH THAN SECOND IF IT\u2019S NOT YOUR TEAMMATE UP THERE?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d rather be third (laughing).\u00a0 It depends.\u00a0 Sometimes fifth is better than second if you had to look at those far apart, that would be kind of tough, but quite possibly that could be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOES THE DOWNFORCE COME INTO PLAY HERE AT ALL AND DO YOU LIKE THIS NEW PACKAGE?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI love the package.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s definitely the right direction.\u00a0 I think when you get behind other cars it does not affect the car behind as much.\u00a0 It still does.\u00a0 Of course it\u2019s always going to because something is punching a hole in the air.\u00a0 Until we figure out a different way of doing it, which I have no clue how that would be.\u00a0 I\u2019m not an engineer, I\u2019m just a driver, but until we figure out what that is there\u2019s always gonna be some hole in the air, but the fact of the matter is we\u2019ve made it so much better being behind another car and being able to race.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s shown in every single race so far, that there\u2019s been better racing that what we had last year, for sure, so I like that part.\u00a0 Here at Martinsville, there\u2019s gonna probably be the least amount of change from last year because it\u2019s the slowest race track we go to and downforce plays the least amount.\u00a0 But I\u2019m sure it will play a little bit in the race when you tuck up right behind somebody because even at Martinsville, when you get really close to another car you lose air on the nose and you can definitely tell, so aero does come into play here, but the downforce change is probably the least amount here.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been in qualifying trim the whole time, too, so I probably don\u2019t have the best read on it yet.\u00a0 I may know a little bit more tomorrow when we get back into race trim.\u201d<\/p>\n

WE TALK ABOUT JIMMIE AND JEFF AND DENNY WHEN WE COME HERE, BUT YOU\u2019RE RIGHT THERE THE LAST TWO OR THREE YEARS.\u00a0 DO YOU FEEL OVERLOOKED COMING HERE?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cNot when I get introduced at driver intros (laughing).\u00a0 Those guys have all won races here and I haven\u2019t, so how are you supposed to talk about me.\u00a0 We\u2019ve won a lot of poles and we\u2019ve led a lot of laps now, but we haven\u2019t won a trophy yet.\u00a0 Jeff\u2019s not here anymore, so it should be a little easier but I think Chase is pretty good as well.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure he\u2019s gonna be up there racing with us, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED — WAS THE ONLY THING STANDING BETWEEN YOU AND WINNING HERE LAST YEAR THE INCIDENT WITH KENSETH?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI felt like there were definitely points in that race that we had the best car.\u00a0 There\u2019s points in the race Brad had the best car.\u00a0 There\u2019s points in the race that the 4 was the best, the 24 was the best, the 20 was the best at times, but at that point in the race towards the end I felt like our car definitely picked up.\u00a0 The track went through a little bit of a swing as the race went and we made some good adjustments to our car to get the speed out of it that we needed to, and I felt like at that point in the race, towards the end there, we were the best car on the race track.\u00a0 As the leader kind of pulling away, I felt like we just had to run our race and everything was gonna go fairly smooth from there.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t many laps to go, so that gives us some confidence.\u00a0 We know what to do and how to work and go fast here.\u00a0 Do I feel like we should have won the race?\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say.\u00a0 There are so many things that could have happened.\u00a0 We could have had another caution and we could have had a different strategy or had a bad restart or maybe a pit stop went wrong.\u00a0 It could have been anything, so it\u2019s hard to say did that cost you a win.\u00a0 Who knows, but it definitely didn\u2019t help.\u00a0 We know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Information provided courtesy of Ford Racing, NASCAR, Getty Images<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MARTINSVILLE, Virginia – Joey Logano won his third straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole today at Martinsville Speedway.\u00a0 In addition, this marks the seventh straight race he\u2019s qualified sixth or better at the half-mile track.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a look at his last seven qualifying efforts: 1st (2016); 1st and 1st (2015); 2nd and 3rd (2014); 6th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[154,155,16],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-joey-logano","tag-martinsville","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/MS_040116_12.jpg?fit=4123%2C2749&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-qy","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}