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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Logano Makes Big Gains
Joey Logano finished fifth at Auto Club Speedway...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted February 22, 2010   Fontana, CA
Joey Logano is in his second full NASCAR Sprint Cup season. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Learning the nuances of wrestling with NASCAR's new-generation Sprint Cup is anything but easy, but second-year racer Joey Logano looks like he's getting the hang of it.
Joey Logano was very happy with his fifth place finish in Sunday's Auto Club 500. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Logano, 19, finished fifth in Sunday's Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway, which was quite a leap forward from his rookie season behind the wheel of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.

“A top-five here feels like a win for me for as much as we improved at this race track,” said Logano after Sunday's race. “The first time I came here was last year and we sucked. We ran 35th to 40th the whole time. Last time we came here we ran probably 20th to 25th and this time around we were within the top 10 and sneaked out a top-five there at the end. You got to be pleased with that. That was really cool.”

Although he claimed Raybestos Rookie of the Year honors in the Sprint Cup Series and won his first race last year, it's no secret that Logano had a trying time replacing Tony Stewart behind the wheel of the No. 20 Home Depot-sponsored Toyota, one of the highest profile rides in the series.

NASCAR's testing ban and Logano's relative inexperience and unfamiliarity with the tracks on the Sprint Cup circuit made the year a challenge for the team, which won two championships with Stewart.

So far this year, though, the progress Logano has made is evident, and he aims to keep it going next week in Las Vegas. “This is what we have to do every week,” said Logano. “It’s cool to see yourself improve from a year ago to keep improving like that. Hopefully we can get some momentum going and go to Vegas, which is one of my favorite tracks so we’ll have fun.”

One of the keys to Logano's improvement, certainly, is the communication he's building with crew chief Greg Zipadelli.

“You can’t put your finger on one thing, it’s a lot of things,” said Logano. “When I feel like we might not have been the best car in practice, we were probably a 20th-place car then. I think Zippy did a good job keeping up with the race track. He made great calls.”

The end result was a fifth-place finish, a run that surprised Logano a little.

“We got it right there at the end, it was the best the car handled, maybe because it was closest to the front and we had more clean air,” he said. “That’s a big deal and I’m very happy. It feels like a win after a year ago with what we had. It definitely feels great.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com! Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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