Pistone: Logano turnaround - Logano looks for turnaround

In a season punctuated by breakout performances from the likes of Trevor Bayne and Regan Smith one highly-touted driver is still waiting to make his mark in the Sprint Cup Series.

Joey Logano continues to struggle in his ascension to NASCAR’s top series and the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is as frustrated as anyone about the situation.
“We’ll see what happens,” Logano said after ten races were put in the book last week in Darlington leaving the young driver mired in 25th place in the point standings. “You have to stay motivated and concentrate on the good things. We’ve run as good if not better than we did at the end of last year.”
The way Logano ended last year had many believing 2011 would finally be the season for him to shine. He ended the season with a string of Top 10 finishes that saw him rise to 16th in the final standings and head into the winter break with perhaps the most momentum in the entire series.

But any hope of that performance carrying over to the new campaign ended quickly with a string of bad luck and mechanical issues that have seen Logano finish in the first ten only once.
“It’s getting harder and harder every week,” Logano said. “You keep thinking all that stuff is behind you. We’re running good every week. We could have four Top 10 finishes but we don’t. … Eventually it is all going to go away and we’re going to get the finishes we deserve.”
The phrase without bad luck Logano would have no luck at all doesn’t help the former phenom feel any better about his current predicament. In fact it stings Logano even more to wonder what might have been had things gone his way rather than the mountain of challenges he’s had thrown in front of him.
“Everybody is going to have bad luck at some point,” Logano said. “Hopefully we’ve used ours up and we’re good from here out. But I still think we can make it by points if we’re as solid as we run every week.
“We can still do it. We’ve got to be smart, not make anymore mistakes from here out. But those wins could be a really big deal if we get them.”
Getting those wins may be Logano’s only hope of validating the prediction by many of a possible Chase berth this season. The new Wild Card eligibility will give Logano a second chance to make the playoffs should he not be able to climb up the standings with consistency from now until mid-September into the Top 10.
As the season races toward event number eleven this Sunday in Dover those thoughts may indeed play a part in future strategies employed by the team.
“We need to do the same thing we’ve been doing except seal the deal at the end of the race,” Logano said of the trend that has seen the No. 20 Toyota start several races off well only to have something derail the overall effort by the time the checkered flag flew. “We’ve run top-10 in every race so far; there’s no reason we can’t do that again Sunday.
“You’re going to want to take chances. We’re borderline to that point that we’ve got to try to make the Chase by wins because we’ve put ourselves behind the 8-ball so much.”

Perhaps some better fortune is in the cards for Logano at Dover this weekend where he’s experienced both highs and lows.
He considers it one of his favorite tracks which may sound strange for a guy who two years ago rolled over about a dozen times in a violent crash racing through turn three.
“I love it – I love Dover, it’s probably one of my top two tracks on the circuit,” he laughed.  “It’s one of the places that I’ve done really well at, and fell victim to the Monster.  I think a lot people think I’d hate Dover after I crashed there so big in the Home Depot Toyota, but I’m cool with it.  It’s a fun race track for me.  It may have something to do with the fact that I run well at it.”
Logano comes into Sunday’s FedEx 400 with two straight Dover Top 10 runs to his credit and points to that success as well as an understanding of how to approach the lightning-fast concrete track as reasons for his positive attitude.
“A lot places you get used to the speed,” he explained.  “There, you feel the speed.  It’s just a big Bristol.  The way that you drop into the turns, the way the car loads – all that.  It has a long turn where you’re carrying a lot of speed all the way through the turns.  It’s cool – it’s a lot of fun.  I always look forward to going there.”

So despite a less than stellar beginning to the year Logano hasn’t lost his enthusiasm or belief that he can succeed at NASCAR’s top level. The way he sees it, that’s the only option there is.
“It does me no good to get down on myself or the team or even the situation,” Logano said. “I know we can compete because we have. I know I can win because I have. I have the firm belief that all the ingredients are here for us to succeed and I truly believe that’s gonna happen.”