Joey Logano started 36th and finished 7th in the No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford Fusion in Sunday afternoon’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. From the drop of the green flag, Logano and the No. 22 crew kept their eyes forward as the red, white and blue Ford Fusion worked inside the top-20 in the opening 20 laps. On the first pit stop of the afternoon, crew chief Todd Gordon called for an air pressure adjustment to assist Logano with center turn. The team continued their forward progress, finishing the first stage in the 15th position. On the ensuing pit stop, Gordon elected to take two tires, sending the No. 22 AAA Ford back to the track in the fourth position. Logano would race as high as third on that run, before settling into the sixth position. Unfortunately, on the next pit stop, Logano was deemed too fast entering pit road and had to serve a costly pass through penalty under green-flag conditions. At the end of the second stage, Logano was one lap down to the race leaders, scored in the 21st position. The team elected to take the wave around to regain the lap and, fortunately, a quick caution allowed the team to return to pit road for four tires and fuel, placing them back on the same pit sequence as the race leaders. The team also handed Logano a left-side spot mirror, which the driver was able to reinstall under the yellow flag condition. On the sixth run of the race, Logano battled an extremely loose condition on corner entry, while still struggling with center turn. Gordon elected to have Logano run long on the following run as most of the leaders hit pit road for green-flag stops. Fortunately for the No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford team, a caution was displayed forcing most of the cars to take the wave around, while Logano was able to pit under caution, restarting the race from the fifth position. On the following short run, Logano’s loose condition intensified which also hurt the drive off the corner. When the caution was displayed again, Gordon elected to bring the AAA Insurance Ford to pit road for a wedge adjustment and fuel. The adjustment proved beneficial as Logano was able to race back up to the 11th position when another caution flag brought the field back to pit road. Gordon again called for two tires on the stop, moving the No. 22 AAA Ford to the second position for the restart. Logano continued to run inside the top five, despite several cautions and a red-flag period. Logano would maintain inside the top-five until the closing 10 laps when the handling started to fade on his No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford, bringing home a seventh-place finish.

“We had a great run today with the AAA Insurance Ford Fusion, considering where we started and what we had to overcome. The team executed really well, had fast pit stops and my Todd (Gordon) wasn’t afraid to try some strategy with two tires and gain us track position. I felt like in the later stages of the race we could run at the front fairly well, and that was definitely a positive.”