theracereview

Joey Logano started second and dominated the opening 188 laps of the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in the No. 22 AAA Ford Fusion en route to a second-place finish on Sunday night. Logano wasted little time grabbing the lead on the opening restart and led the event until the competition caution at lap 28. Quick work by the No. 22 AAA crew sent Logano back out into the lead, where he remained until lap 74 when the team made their first green flag pit stop. As the stops cycled out, Logano regained the lead and continued setting a torrid pace, lapping up to the 20th place competitor. The team would hold the lead until lap 187 when they pitted under green a lap later than the second and third place competitors. The handling of the AAA Ford Fusion shifted to tight in dirty air, while Logano battled a free condition at corner exit. The team would run inside the top five, remaining in touch with the leaders throughout the remainder of the event. At lap 256, the team pitted under the yellow flag and with rain in the area, delivered a money stop moving the No. 22 AAA Ford up three positions. Logano would struggle on the inside line, and have to fight his way back to fourth before another caution flag that would setup the final restart of the event. Logano demonstrated his restart prowess as he gained two positions and battled with eventual race winner Carl Edwards in the closing stages of the event. The No. 22 AAA Ford was running down the leader, trimming over a second from the lead before rain moved back in and brought a premature end to the race after 439.5 miles.

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“Yeah, we had such a fast car. Especially in the beginning of the race. That thing took off and we drove out to a six or seven-second lead and I was feeling good about it. As the track changed we lost the handle a little and lost the lead. Went all the way back to fifth and then got our balance better where the car was getting going again and I had a good restart to get from fourth to second there at the end with a good pit stop there that got us a couple spots too. The team did a very good job executing when we needed to. We just didn’t have enough laps. It seemed like the momentum swung the other way with about three or four laps to go before the caution came out and I was starting to catch the 19 pretty rapidly. Unfortunately, it just started raining and that was the end of the race. It is what it is. We are going to be close. There are a lot of cars close going into Phoenix. It will be entertaining. It will probably be the closest Phoenix race we have ever seen as far as points. It should be a fun one for sure.”

AAA 500