Joey Logano, the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver who began his racing career at Silver City Quarter Midget Club, will be at On Track Karting in Wallingford on Sunday, January 29 to help raise money for improvements to the Silver City facility that has not seen many structural upgrades since Logano started racing there in 1996.
This fundraiser will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in support of the Meriden-based non-profit organization that has been giving kids between the ages of 5 and 16 the chance to race cars for more than fifty years. Donations of $10 for adults and $5 for children will be accepted at the door. In addition to the autograph signing session, one of the highlights of the day will be the Raffle Races that will give lucky winners the opportunity to race against Joey Logano himself on one of the largest and fastest indoor kart tracks on the East Coast. To participate in the Raffle Races, you must be a member or become a member of On Track Karting. Attendees will also be able to bid on a wide variety of items, both racing-related and not, in the silent auction.
Organizers are still accepting sponsorships and silent auction donations. If you would like to contribute, please contact Lisa Bozzuto at (203) 915-9235 or silvercitysecretary@gmail.com or Elizabeth Regan at (860) 859-2621 or ecregan@sbcglobal.net. More information is available at www.silvercityquartermidgets.com.
Silver City Quarter Midget Club is sanctioned by Quarter Midgets of America, an international organization with 43 member clubs serving more than 2400 families. QMA was founded in 1960 on the principles of family togetherness, sportsmanship and respect for motor-driven vehicles.
A total of three days of testing at the Daytona International Speedway began today. Results from today’s sessions along with photos and a video interview are posted below.
Joey Logano Daytona Testing Day One Practice Results
During the morning session teams were restricted to single car runs only. NASCAR permitted cars to draft together during the afternoon session, but only a handful of drivers did so.
Session
Rank
Sponsor
Best Speed
Best Time
Morning
14
The Home Depot/Dollar General
191.249
47.059
Afternoon
2
The Home Depot/Dollar General
202.388
44.469
Joey Logano Quotes
How did the two-car tandem work with you and Kyle Busch?
“Oh man, we we’re pushing like crazy. It was alright. It was okay. We’re just working with what we need to do to try to be able to do it again with the rules changes and stuff like that. It’s made it super hard. It works good in practice right now, but when we get a bunch of cars around us in a racing situation, it’s probably not going to work as good. We’ll kind of see what happens. I wish we could get a lot of cars out there and I think that will be happening in the next couple of days, maybe tomorrow. I’m sure there will be a lot more cars out their drafting. Hopefully, something like that happens and it comes along good and we’ll have a better read than where we are at. We’re trying some things — trying to keep our car as cool as we can, some handling things, getting pushed and stuff like that.”
What do you anticipate in a big group?
“I wish we got more cars out there today to know for sure, but I really think that we’re not going to be pushing as much. I think there will be a little bit of pushing and I think there will be a lot of old school draft, or whatever you want to call it. I think a lot of people are going to save it until the end and a lot of people won’t be able to do it for a very long time. I think it’s going to kind of look like the races when we first started to figure out how to do this two-car draft and only some people were doing it and some other people were just doing the regular draft. All that is probably going to look similar to that than what we had before.”
What are your thoughts on eliminating the in-race communication between drivers?
“I’m hoping they change that back, because it ain’t going to pretty if we can’t talk to each other.”
Jason Ratcliff Quotes
How do you feel about becoming the crew chief for the No. 20 Sprint Cup Camry?
“It’s very exciting. When I look at it from a family perspective — my wife and I — we’ve often thought being in this sport, ‘Will this day come?’ And if it does, ‘What’s the best timing for us?’ Really I can’t think of a better time as far as my family goes. I’m excited about it and I’m excited about working with Joey (Logano). We have a championship race team over here and he’s pumped up. He’s looking forward to it. They have a good group. We need to get faster race cars and I know our engineers and then also bringing Darian (Grubb, crew chief No. 11) — it’s kind of opened up this whole process a little bit in some different areas and with myself as well. Hopefully I can bring some new ideas over here too. It’s going to be fun and we’re looking forward to it. So far everything is going well. Nothing crazy — it is Daytona. Right now the biggest frustrations we have are the wind and the seagulls. Other than that, it’s all good.”
What is it like to walk into Daytona as a Sprint Cup crew chief?
“It’s different just because I see different faces. I made so many friends over on the other side and I’m sure I will here as well. A lot of new faces so just getting familiar with these guys — that’s the biggest change. Different color on the truck — I almost climbed on the 18 truck earlier. I have to get used to that. On my desktop computer I put a big 20 on it so it would help me get acclimated with that part. Just new faces and new officials — getting comfortable with that. I walked in earlier and talked to Mr. (John) Darby (NSCS Director) and I knew him from the Busch (Nationwide) Series. I am just looking forward to meeting some new friends.”
What are your goals for the Daytona test?
“In the past we’ve struggled a little bit on our qualifying stuff and our aero department and engine department — all of it — they have really worked hard at qualifying. Here at Daytona qualifying is what it is, but you want to come down here at Speedweeks and represent your sponsor and your team by putting up a good lap. So far, it appears as though we have made some gains over the winter compared to the competition. Probably made those gains in a lot of different areas so we’re pumped about that. We have a little ways to go to catch some of these guys, but I think we’re halfway there as long as everybody else isn’t sandbagging on us. Our goal realistically is to hopefully improve our single car stuff and we’ll get out there and start pushing each other after a while and see how that goes.”
How has the transition to TRD engines and EFI been for you?
“I’m not really a good judge to how much different it is than it was before. Really, it’s the same group of people — we’ve always worked really close with TRD in the past so no real new faces there. It’s exciting to kind of get a little closer and kind of close that communication a little bit and work a little closer together. In the EFI stuff, it’s new for everybody so I hope that if there’s any area that maybe I’m coming in on the same playing field — that’s the only one because it’s new for everybody. So far it’s going good.”
How was your first day of testing at Daytona?
“It went good. We started off just making some single car runs and felt like we found a few things. We found some speed. Our drafting stuff — the biggest thing with the rule changes that NASCAR has come out with this year and just trying to figure that out and see how it’s going to affect our cars cooling wise, the spoiler is a lot smaller and just working through some stability things and trying to get the drivers comfortable to where they can draft. The thing we don’t know yet is when you get 15 or 30 cars out there together, that’s what we’re trying to prepare for. Until you do it, you really don’t know what you’ve got. We learned some things there, we made a lot of chassis adjustments and obviously going through the new EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection) stuff and trying to get familiar with that. It was a good day. We’ve got a couple more days here and I think we’ll learn a lot.”
Is there a bigger risk with the two-car tandem with the new rules?
“There is because you’re cutting it way too close. You can stay together, but you have to sacrifice speed to do it. You have to tuck out and get some air on the nose and as you do that you continue to slow the car down. Again, when you get seven or eight groups out there doing that it’s going to be a different ball game. It will be interesting. Hopefully, tomorrow we will get more guys out there drafting and get some more tandems out there and see how it works out. One time there we got three cars — all three Joe Gibbs (Racing) cars out there just to see how that would work out and it was okay. The speed wasn’t there. You have to weigh it all out and by the time you do the swap every two or two-and-a-half laps then you figure all that in — we’re just trying to weigh all our options and go back and lay it all out on the table and see what’s best.”
What do you think we will see in the race in February?
“I think you’re going to see bigger packs just because guys can’t stay tucked up like they could before. The cars are going to get too hot. Today we were able to communicate fairly well, but I think they’re talking about taking some of the communication away between the drivers — for safety reasons. A lot of times you get a lot of chatter and you don’t really know who to listen to and who not to listen to. NASCAR is looking at that and so that’s something we have to think through as well, but I think it will be more packed up. You’ll see two-car tandems, but they’re not going to be driving away from the rest of them like we’ve seen in the past.”
Recap of the questions answered by Joey Logano today from a live Q&A Twitter session at Daytona International Speedway.
