Results from today’s NASCAR Nationwide Series qualifying session at Phoenix International Raceway. Joey Logano drove the number 18 GameStop / Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Toyota.
Only one practice session was scheduled today for the NASCAR Nationwide Series at Phoenix International Raceway. Teams prepared their cars for tomorrow’s qualifying and Wypall 200. Results from today’s sessions, along with photos are posted below.
A total of two practice sessions were scheduled today for the NASCAR Nationwide Series at Phoenix International Raceway. Joey Logano is driving the number 18 GameStop / Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 this weekend. Results from today’s practice sessions, along with photos are posted below.
No. 18 GameStop Toyota News, Notes & Paint Scheme:
LOGANO BACK IN No. 18, LOOKING FOR POINTS: Joey Logano will be back in the GameStop Toyota this weekend at Phoenix International Speedway. However, he won’t be in his familiar No. 20. Instead, for the fourth time this year, Logano will be back behind the wheel of the No. 18 in an effort to help the Joe Gibbs Racing organization win their fourth-straight NASCAR Nationwide Series Owner’s Championship and third-straight for the No. 18 group. The hunt for the Owner’s Championship is down to two teams, the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team and the No. 60 Roush Fenway team. The No. 18 team holds a slim two-point lead over the No. 60 with just two races remaining on the schedule. While Logano takes the reins of the No. 18 this weekend, Ryan Truex will be making his final start of the year in the No. 20 Toyota.
CALL OF DUTY®: MODERN WARFARE 3 MAKES A RARE “SECOND APPEARANCE”: Proving that Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3 is one of the most highly-anticipated video games of the year, the franchise’s most recent entry will make a rare “second” appearance on the GameStop Toyota this weekend. The best-selling first person action series of all-time returns with the epic sequel to multiple Game of the Year award winner, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2. Prepare yourself for a cinematic thrill-ride as only Call of Duty can deliver. Engage enemy forces in New York, Paris, Berlin and other attack sites across the globe. Special Ops returns with a bevy of additions, including 16 new objective-based missions and the all-new Survival Mode. Team up online, locally, or play solo and face endless waves of attacking enemies throughout every multiplayer map. Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3 hit store shelves Nov. 8 and is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Only two other games have ever been featured on the GameStop Toyota for more than one race: Red Dead Redemption and NASCAR 2011.
PHOENIX A FAVORITE FOR LOGANO: While victory has eluded Logano at Phoenix International Raceway over the years in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, it’s been a good track for the 21-year-old. In five career starts at the track, Logano has never finished outside of the top-10, including a near-race win in the spring race of 2010 when Logano found himself leading late, but contact with another car damaged the right front of his Toyota and forced him to slide through the field on a final race to the checkers. Logano won the pole for the fall Phoenix event last year and led 23 laps before coming home in third. Not counting his rookie season of 2008, Logano has not qualified outside of the top-six at Phoenix. Logano also has two top-10 finishes in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Phoenix and was en route to a third in the spring race before his engine let go midway through the event.
RETURN TO RATCLIFF: Jason Ratcliff and the regular team will welcome Logano back to the No. 18 Toyota this weekend in Phoenix. The weekend will mark the third time Ratcliff and Logano have worked together as crew chief/driver pairing. The first came at Michigan International Speedway during Logano’s rookie season of 2008. The two then worked together earlier this season at Kansas, where Logano finished seventh. Ratcliff has a strong history at Phoenix, earning three wins and six top 10s at the track as a crew chief.
CHASSIS: The JGR team will bring proven race-winning chassis #109 to Phoenix this weekend. That chassis has raced three times this season and won all three events, all with Busch behind the wheel. The chassis ran at the first Phoenix event and both Bristol events.
STAT OF THE WEEK: 3 Million. With Logano’s eighth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway and his $18,195 payday, Logano earned his way into the $3 million career-earnings club in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.
THE RACE: The Wypall 200 at Phoenix International Raceway (Avondale, AZ; 1-mile tri-oval) is set for Saturday afternoon, November 12, 2011. The race will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 3:30 p.m. ET, with radio coverage on MRN starting at 3 p.m. ET.
Logano’s 2011 NASCAR Nationwide Series Season Stats:
Starts
Wins
Top 5
Top 10
Poles
Laps Led
Earnings
Avg. Start
Avg. Finish
20
1
7
13
1
102
$478,005
6.5
9.1
Logano’s Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats:
Starts
Wins
Top 5
Top 10
Poles
Laps Led
Earnings
Avg. Start
Avg. Finish
86
9
40
67
16
1449
$3,012,209
7.1
7.5
Logano’s Career NASCAR Nationwide Series Stats at Phoenix International Raceway:
Starts
Wins
Top 5
Top 10
Poles
Laps Led
Earnings
Avg. Start
Avg. Finish
5
0
2
5
1
44
$139,543
5.4
6.6
Joey Logano Quotes:
“I’m pretty excited about Phoenix. I’ve always been fortunate enough to run strong there, and I’ve always felt like whenever I’ve been there, I’ve been in contention to fight for the win. There are a lot of tracks that for one reason or another drivers say owe them a win. I don’t always think that, but I can think of a couple of times at Phoenix where I think we had the best car and were able to lead laps and things went down and we weren’t able to win the race. But, I’ve never finished outside of the top 10 there, so I’m pretty fortunate for that. I’m also excited to get another chance to work with Jason (Ratcliff) this weekend. I know he’s got a ton of experience, and he’s got a good track record at Phoenix. I have a pretty good feeling going into this weekend.
“Phoenix is going to be a lot different this time. No one really knows what the track will be like since they redid it earlier this year. Thankfully, I was one of the drivers who got the opportunity to go out there and test during the open test and got to make some laps. While the layout is similar with the dogleg on the backstretch though, the way it’s been moved back does change your entry and exit a little bit. I think the biggest thing for us to deal with though will be whether a second groove will come in. When we get on the track the first time, the track will be one groove like it was during the test. Hopefully though, during the weekend, with all of the laps the Nationwide and Cup cars will put on the track, we can get a second groove in. If we can, I think the track will be a lot of fun and put on some pretty good racing. It’s always been a fun track to drive; probably one of the best on the schedule.
“It will be cool to run the Call of Duty car again this weekend as well. GameStop always has some great games featured on the car and some really cool paint schemes, and I love the black and green car and suits we have for the weekend. It looks sick. I’m pretty excited to get a chance to play the game as well. I know there are a lot of people excited for that game to come out this week and they’ve got a bunch of midnight openings all around the country. Hopefully everyone can take a break from playing to watch us race on Saturday at least.”
The Finish: Joey Logano and the No. 20 GameStop/Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Toyota had a solid day at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge, coming home with an eighth-place finish. The team spent all afternoon fighting a loose condition but rallied back from 13th to eighth over the race’s final 25 laps to grab another top-10 result.
The Race Recap: Logano and the GameStop/Call of Duty: MW3 Toyota struggled in practice on Friday but got it all back in the rare Friday night time trial session, coming home with a third-place qualifying effort, just .02-seconds off the pole. When the green flag dropped for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge on Saturday afternoon, Logano and the GameStop team quickly realized that their current setup was too loose. Logano began to fall through the field, eventually settling into the 10th position. All afternoon, the GameStop pit crew had solid stops on pit road, consistently gaining several spots under caution. At various times during the day, Crew Chief Adam Stevens made track bar, air and wedge adjustments, as well as taking the time to add rubbers to the left rear spring on two different occasions. Despite the various and frequent adjustments, the pit crew continued to get Logano out two or more spots ahead of where he came in. Through the middle portion of the race, Logano found himself running inside the top-five early in runs before eventually fading into the back-half of the top-10. Finally near the end of the race, Stevens hit on something with the No. 20 and Logano was able to race from the last car on the lead lap in 13th position all the way into the top 10. Over the last 25 laps, Logano was one of the fastest cars on the track and drove from 13th to eighth when the checkers flew.
Joey’s Quotes: “We really struggled with the GameStop Toyota today here at Texas. I don’t know what the problem was, but we could never just get the car to handle like we wanted it too. I was really pumped after qualifying but the car was just way too loose when we started the race. That first run I could hardly drive it and really was just hanging on. We lost so much time and so much track position there because of the long green-flag run. When we finally got to come in and make an adjustment, I think we were running 10th and we made a quite a few major adjustments. Our first few adjustments helped early in the runs, but then the car would get just as loose as it was as the runs went on. In the end, I think we ended up going the wrong way and we had to spend the rest of the day adjusting back out of that. Finally at the end, we got it better and I feel like we were fast, but we still had lost a lot of track position. We still needed to make some more changes to get it to where we needed to be, but we ran out of laps. We were able to get up to eighth there at the end, which is better than I felt like we were going to be early in the race, but I know we are all a little disappointed in our run. It’s a good thing though when you can be disappointed with an eighth-place finish I guess.
“This was a brand new car and I don’t know if that was part of our problem or what. We’ve been working on building some new cars and I think it is going to take some time to figure them out. I think once we get the kinks worked out, we’ll be fine. Like anything though, you always have a few bugs to work out when you are working with new stuff. I really think the direction we are going is great though. I was really pumped after how well we ran at Charlotte and coming here with this track being pretty similar. I think we just missed it on the setup a little bit I guess, but eighth isn’t too bad.”
What’s Next: The GameStop/Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Toyota and Logano will return to action next weekend at Phoenix International Raceway. However, next weekend, Logano and GameStop will ride on the side of the No. 18 Toyota.
CALL OF DUTY®: MODERN WARFARE 3 MAKES A RARE “SECOND APPEARANCE”: Proving that Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3 is one of the most highly-anticipated video games of the year, the franchise’s most recent entry will make a rare “second” appearance on the GameStop Toyota this weekend. The best-selling first person action series of all-time returns with the epic sequel to multiple Game of the Year award winner, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2. Prepare yourself for a cinematic thrill-ride as only Call of Duty can deliver. Engage enemy forces in New York, Paris, Berlin and other attack sites across the globe. Special Ops returns with a bevy of additions, including 16 new objective-based missions and the all-new Survival Mode. Team up online, locally, or play solo and face endless waves of attacking enemies throughout every multiplayer map. Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3 hit store shelves Nov. 8 and is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Only two other games have ever been featured on the GameStop Toyota for more than one race: Red Dead Redemption and NASCAR 2011.
The Finish: Joey Logano and the No. 20 GameStop/Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Toyota had a solid day at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge, coming home with an eighth-place finish. The team spent all afternoon fighting a loose condition but rallied back from 13th to eighth over the race’s final 25 laps to grab another top-10 result. 