O'Reilly Auto Parts 300 - Results

Joey Logano and GameStop Team Earn Season-Best Fourth-Place Finish at Texas Motor Speedway

Joey Logano and the No. 20 GameStop Racing team made some big strides Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway, coming home fourth in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at the 1.5-mile track in Fort Worth, TX. The finish was a season-best for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team, besting their fifth-place finish at Bristol a few weeks ago.

Logano started the afternoon by qualifying seventh for the 200-lap event. Early, Logano and the No. 20 GameStop Toyota fought a loose car, causing him to fall back to the ninth-position. However, a long green-flag run to start the event allowed the car to come back to Logano and he slowly started picking up spots before the first round of stops on lap 48 following the race’s first caution flag.

Crew chief Adam Stevens made a track bar adjustment, which got the balance on the car much better for the next run. Logano ran fifth and sixth over the next couple of runs and got as high as second as green-flag pit stops began around lap 125. The team made just minor air pressure adjustments over the remainder of the event and Logano stated the car was handling the best it had all weekend long.

On several occasions, Logano was the fastest car on the track, running times equal to or better than the leaders. Logano stated that the team’s biggest weakness was losing too much track position following restarts. The team made one more stop on lap 178 and again made only a minor air pressure adjustment before sending Logano back out.

Logano came out of the pits fifth and was able to pick up one more spot over the race’s final 20 laps before settling for fourth when the checkers fell at the end of the 200-lap event.

In addition to the fourth-place finish, Logano and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team moved into first-place in the NASCAR Nationwide Series Owner’s point standings, one point ahead of the No. 60 of Roush Racing, heading into Talladega.

Joey Logano Thoughts:
“We really made strides tonight and ran better than we have all year long, except for maybe in Daytona. After tonight, I have a pretty good feeling about the No. 20 team and think that with a couple of more races under our belt, we’ll be competing for wins. What everyone forgets is this is a brand-new team from last year. We’ve only got one guy that returned from last year’s crew. So it’s been a learning curve, but we are getting better. Adam (Stevens) is making good calls and the guys are doing good. We just need to find that little bit more. We know where it is, we just need to work on it and get it to the level that we need to be. We can win some races this year.

“The car was solid all night long. We were really loose early and then made the car better and it had the best balance it had all weekend long. We just lacked the speed of Carl (Edwards) and those other guys that got us tonight. But that car was handling great. We just need to be better on the restarts. They get away from us and then we get 10 laps into a run and we’re faster than everyone. But by that point, we’ve lost too much ground. If we can figure that out, we’ll be right there. I know I gave it 110 percent all night long. That race wore me out. People don’t realize how tough those races are. I’m ready for a shower, some food and my bed.

“I’m happy we were able to put together another good run for GameStop here at their home track. They had a bunch of people here. I really want to get them a win here at the track, but we’ve got a lot of good notes to come back here in the fall. I’ve got a second and two fourths the last three races here. We’re getting there.”

Adam Stevens Quotes:
“I’m really proud of the guys and of Joey tonight. They really worked hard and Joey worked his butt off behind the wheel. This is not an easy track, because loose is fast, but you can’t be too loose, which we were in that first run. Joey did a great job at giving feedback and that helped me make the right adjustments. We had the car handling really well there in the middle and late part of the race. All we were doing was making minor air pressure adjustments.

“We just need to get better on the early runs. The car has to be there in the early run and the late run. The longer the run goes, the faster Joey got to the point that he was the fastest car on the track a good portion of the night. We just lost too much ground early. We’ll get better though. We’ve gotten better from the start of the year and we improve every week. Just a little bit more is all we need. And we’ll keep working on that every week.”

What’s Next:
The No. 20 GameStop Toyota will return to the track next weekend, April 16th, at Talladega Superspeedway for the Aaron's 312.

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