Texas Race Preview
Huntersville, N.C. – Home field advantage is always a topic of conversation in any sport. Your home crowd can lift you up and act as another member of your team. To further elevate its importance, Major League Baseball plays its all-star game for home field advantage in the World Series. In the tough games, when the chips are down, you want it on your side.
Texas Motor Speedway is a long way from Joey Logano’s hometown of Middletown, CT and his current residence in Huntersville, N.C, but he will enjoy such an “advantage” when he arrives there for this weekend’s O’Reilly 300. Grapevine, Texas is a short drive from the racetrack. It is the home of GameStop, the world’s largest video game and software entertainment retailer and Nationwide Series sponsor for Logano and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. When the green flag falls on Saturday, the stands will be filled with GameStop employees cheering on their favorite driver in hopes that Logano can make a return trip to victory lane, as he did at the Kentucky Speedway last year, in their colors.
The saying is that “everything is bigger in Texas.” A win on Saturday would have to rank among the biggest of Logano’s career.
Joey Logano Quotes
“The last time we raced at Texas we ran well in the GameStop Toyota. We finished fourth and had a really strong car. We qualified well, too. Our speedway stuff at Joe Gibbs Racing is as good as anyone. Going back to Texas for a second time now we know where we need to be. I know the feeling that I’m looking for in the car and having that experience is nice.”
“It seems like a lot of the 1.5-mile tracks like Charlotte, Atlanta and this weekend at Texas, you come off the corner and the track flattens out. The banking is just not there for you. They are all different in how they do it, but at all of them you end up flat and you can lose the nose or the rear of the car throughout a run. In the Nationwide race last fall, we all ran the bottom because that was the fast way around.”
“The great thing about racing at Texas is we have a big fan base with the GameStop headquarters just down the road in Grapevine. There should be a lot of employees at the race and it will be good to hang out with those guys for a bit. They are great to work with and it’s cool to represent them all across the country, but especially here at their home track.”
Noteworthy
◦ Logano started eighth and finished fourth in the 2008 fall race at Texas.
◦ The No. 20 JGR Toyota started sixth and finished tenth in the 2008 edition of this race.
◦ The No. 20 JGR Nationwide Series team has competed in 11 Nationwide Series events at Texas, garnering three top- 5 finishes, six top-10 finishes and one pole award.
◦ This is a “home” game for GameStop as their corporate headquarters sit just 15 miles from the Texas Motor Speedway in Grapevine.
◦ Guitar Hero-Metallica will adorn the No. 20 Toyota this weekend along with GameStop. You can pick up a copy of the recently released game at any local GameStop store.
No. 20 GameStop Toyota
Season Stats
Wins: 0
Poles: 0
Top 5: 1
Top 10: 2
Best Start: 7
Best Fin: 3
Avg. Start: 12.7
Avg. Fin: 10.7
Race Information
Series: Nationwide Series
Race: O’Reilly 300
Distance: 300 miles
Laps: 200 laps
Race No.: 5 of 35
Venue: Texas Motor Speedway
Location: Ft. Worth, Texas
Chassis Info
Primary: JGR #2089
History: Logano drove this chassis to a third place finish at the Auto Club Speedway in February.
Backup: JGR #2073
Broadcast Information
Saturday
Race: 2:30 PM EST
TV: ESPN2
Radio: PRN and Sirius
