Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion took advantage of some crafty pit strategy by crew chief Todd Gordon and a heavy rainstorm to record his eighth top-five finish of the season on Sunday afternoon in the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Logano qualified his Shell-Pennzoil Ford in the 11th position, but slipped back early after getting really loose on consecutive restarts. Two red flag situations for rain kept Logano from making any progress forward even though the car was decent after several laps. Gordon called Logano in for four tires during the lap 40 competition caution, putting him back in the pack after several teams took just two tires. Logano raced around the 20th position, but slowly began making up spots as other cars had to pit for fuel. Logano led laps and was able to stretch his fuel until having to pit on lap 95 when his car began to sputter. The different pit strategy allowed Logano to make up spots during several rounds of green stops, eventually getting a timely caution while running fifth. Logano was able to hold onto fifth until the fourth red flag of the day was displayed for rain showers. This time, the rain didn’t let up, forcing NASCAR to call the race after just 138 of the 200 laps. The fifth-place finish allowed Logano to move up one spot in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings to third, 56 points behind Kevin Harvick.

“It was a tough day but we got a good finish out of it. I felt like we were kind of stuck back in traffic a lot of the race and couldn’t get good restarts in the beginning of the day and kept losing spots. That was frustrating. The car was loose. We made some good adjustments and got off the majority strategy which played right where we wanted to when the caution came out by staying out and getting a longer run on fuel. The last restart we lost a couple spots unfortunately. I feel like overall it was a good day considering how everything went and starting 11th which wasn’t very good. We will go to the off-weekend now and get ready for the road course.”