Heluva Good! 400 at Michigan International Speedway Race Report
June 13, 2010- 1. Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
- 2. Kasey Kahne, No. 9 Ford
- 3. Kurt Busch, No. 2 Dodge
- 10. Joey Logano, No. 20 The Home Depot Toyota
The Home Depot Battles Back to Finish 10th at Michigan
Brooklyn, Mich. (June 13, 2010) –Joey Logano and The Home Depot Team overcame early handling problems at Michigan International Speedway to score a top-10 finish in the Heluva Good! 400 on Sunday. Handling problems plagued the team throughout the first half of the race but a handful of adjustments course corrected the event and sent Logano through the field where he was able to run as high as sixth before settling for a 10th-place finish.
"Overall it's a good weekend," Logano said after the race. "Based on where we started, a top-10 finish is great. We started making a run towards the end of the race that was pretty good and I think we were running top-five lap times but we ran out of time."
A loose-handling No. 20 The Home Depot Toyota plagued the team from the drop of the green flag. Early minor adjustments did nothing to fix the problem as Logano continued to lose positions on the track throughout the first 40 laps. Logano was in the 21st position when the second caution of the race waved on lap 47. The team made its first major adjustment during this caution, adding a rubber to the left-rear spring. The change was a step in the right direction so crew chief Greg Zipadelli called for more of the same during the next pit stop that took place on lap 89.
It was on from that point. Logano was in the 23rd position before the lap 89 pit stop and started making steady forward progress from that point. Logano was up to 16th by lap 110 and had picked up two more positions by lap 120 when he reported that the car was "the best it had been so far."
Logano cracked the top 10 with less than 50 laps to go in the race and was in the eighth position when the team made what would be its last pit stop of the day on lap 175 – making only a slight air pressure adjustment with four tires and fuel. Caution waved only five laps later with the No. 20 The Home Depot Toyota in the eighth position. With only five green-flag laps on the set of tires, the team elected to stay out to maintain the track position they had by being in eighth place.
While the top-10 cars in the running order stayed out on the track, the rest of the lead lap cars pitted for two and four-tire stops. Racing restarted on lap 186 with Logano in the eighth position. He quickly jumped up to sixth before being overcome by a handful of cars with fresher tires. He battled during the closing laps to stay in the top 10 and scored his sixth top-10 finish of the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
"I thought it would be alright if we stayed out with five laps on our tires there at the end but we got beat," Logano said. "We'll take it. It's a good points day. That's what we've got to do every week. I've got to thank The Home Depot and Toyota for what they do for us."
Logano's top-10 finish allows him to remain 17th in the driver point standings where he is 107 points out of 12th place. He sits a mere 16 points out of 15th. Logano's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin cruised to his fifth victory of the season on Sunday while Kyle Busch struggled with late-handling problems, brushing the wall a couple of times during the closing laps before finishing 20th.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series travels west for next weekend's Toyota Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. It marks the first road-course race of the season for the series. The race is scheduled for a 3 p.m. ET start next Sunday.
