#22- Joey Logano passed #42-Kyle Larson with two laps to go to win Saturday night’s Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, becoming the ninth different Ford driver to win the non-points event. #2-Brad Keselowski finished second to give Team Penske a sweep of the top two spots. Comments from both drivers about the win and the format of the All-Star race:
Logano Victory Lane Interview: ‘I tell you, Larson is a hard racer. I watched him in the Showdown earlier today and I knew what I was up against. I knew he was gonna run hard. I’m a hard racer, I knew it was gonna be a fun battle for sure. I got underneath him once and I got to the outside of him once, we went up high and I got underneath him and I got loose underneath him. I knew I had position on him going into the corner and had to keep him on my quarterpanel and not let him get to my door, so I drove in there hard. He was gonna drive in there hard to keep on my door and I was gonna drive in there hard to keep him at my quarter. What a crazy battle for a million dollars at the end. This is the All-Star Race. It’s special just to be in the race. Forget winning it, it’s just special. It’s neat to be in victory lane.’
Q) WHEN DID YOU DECIDE ON THAT STRATEGY?
Logano: ‘We actually didn’t go by Plan A. We had Plan A, B, C, and D, and we actually went by Plan B, which was the two-tire call there. I actually thought we were in trouble there when a couple cars pitted under caution and we got used up on that restart. I thought, ‘Oh boy, we’re not in position to win,’ but then we had a good pit stop by our pit crew ‘ got us out there in a decent spot and it was game-on from there.’
Q) WHERE DOES THIS WIN RANK?
Logano: ‘It’s up there for sure. It’s definitely one you want to have on your resume. You want to have the Daytona 500, but the All-Star Race is special and the Coca-Cola 600 is next and that’s a really special one to have.
Keselwoski Post-Race Press Conference: ‘A decent night, but not the great night we wanted with the Miller Lite Ford ending up second. I’m pretty happy for my teammate Joey Logano. He kind of did exactly what you would expect out of an All-Star Race format and made a pretty incredible pass to win the race. I’m happy for Team Penske as a whole, but, of course, I wish it was me in victory lane.’
Q) CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS FORMAT AND HOW IT PLAYED OUT?
Keselwoski: ‘There was a next-to-last lap pass for the lead. There were several passes for the lead. The last four races there hasn’t been a pass for the lead in the last 20 or 30 laps. I think our fans deserve a better format than that and they got that today. I don’t know how you can get much more compelling racing than what we saw today, so they need to get unconfused and enjoy the racing.’
Q) DID THE RULES CHANGES HELP?
Keselwoski: ‘Absolutely. I thought it was certainly a key to making the cars have more fall off and open up more passing opportunities, so, yeah, I think that was a pretty big positive for here.’(Ford Racing)
