Joey Logano started eighth and finished 18th in Sunday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway in the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion. Logano, who ran inside the top-five at times in the race, entered the event in must-win mode for making the playoffs with Darlington serving as the penultimate event in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular season. At the start of the event, Logano battled an extremely tight Shell-Pennzoil Ford, leading the team to adjust with air pressure on the first stop of the race at lap 17. Quick work by the pit crew gained Logano three positions on pit road, moving the driver into the top-five for the first time in the event. As the track continued to change during the second run, the handling of the Ford Fusion swung to the extreme loose side, dropping the team back to the 12th position before a lap 41 caution. The Shell-Pennzoil crew again gained Logano a position leaving pit road, but unfortunately that led to a restart on the inside line, which was a disadvantage for the majority of the race. The wedge and air pressure adjustments on the stop proved to be to the driver’s liking as he was able to move forward to the eighth position before the conclusion of the first stage. Unfortunately, as Logano cut the engine off to lower the temperature as the caution came out, a sensor issue prevented the car from re-firing and dropped the team to the 16th position before pitting. On the next stop, the team handed the driver a piece of tape to place over the ignition switch to ensure the engine remained on for the rest of the event. Logano raced back to the 12th position before the end of the second stage. Logano continued to report a loose handling racecar throughout the stage, but the Shell-Pennzoil crew continued making adjustments and providing position gains on each stop. The largest gain resulted in picking up four positions at the end of the second stage, moving the team from the 12th position where they finished the stage back inside the top-10 to the eighth position. The team continued inside the top-10 into the late stages of the event before the loose condition intensified to the point that Logano lost a lap to the race leaders before pitting with 10 laps remaining, ultimately finishing in the 18th position.

“Yeah, but we’ve done well here before too, but we just didn’t have the speed today. The team executed really well. Our pit crew was super-fast and we had a car that was good on the long run sometimes, but never good on the short run. And then at the end it was horrible on the long run, so we just never really got the balance right. We were good in the day, but when we got to night time all hell broke loose for us. We’re on to the next one.”