The Home Depot Team Notes of Interest
· Joey Logano and The Home Depot Team return to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend for the Dickies 500. Logano will be making just his third start at the 1.5-mile track, but second in the No. 20 Toyota Camry. The team struggled to find a good balance on the No. 20 car in April, as Logano finished in the 30th position and four laps down to the leader.
· Logano and The Home Depot Team moved up one spot in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings to 19th after their third-place run last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. Logano is now 25 points out of 18th and 45 points behind Jeff Burton in 17th with three races remaining this season. The Home Depot Team has one win, three top-five and seven top-10 finishes this year. His top five’s have come at three different types of tracks: a one-mile flat track (New Hampshire International Speedway), a 1.5-mile speedway (Charlotte Motor Speedway) and a restrictor-plate track (Talladega Superspeedway).
· The No. 20 Team is taking chassis #258 to the track this weekend for the 334-lap race at Texas Motor Speedway. The Home Depot Team took this chassis to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. in October where Logano qualified sixth and finished 14th. It is only the second start for chassis #258 this season.
· Logano increased his lead over Scott Speed to 37 points (236-199) in the Raybestos Rookie standings. Logano earned rookie of the race honors for the fourth-consecutive race and for the 24th time this season with his top five at Talladega. He became just the seventh rookie since 1975 to finish in the top five at the fall race in Talladega. Last year’s top rookie at Texas Motor Speedway in the Dickies 500 finished 23rd.
Logano on Texas:
“Texas was one of the most difficult races for us a team earlier this year. We struggled, I struggled. We’ve come a long way as a team since them; I’ve come a long way as a driver. Zippy and The Home Depot Team are building new and better cars and we are running much more consistently, especially the second time we visit these tracks.
“I know everyone thinks Charlotte and Texas are similar, but I don’t think they could be more different. Texas has long corners, and is worn out so it doesn’t have as much grip as Charlotte. I seem to run better at the tracks with a lot of grip and tighter, sharper corners. I have it figured it out in the Nationwide car, and we run better the second time around in the Cup car so I think we will run much better this weekend.”
