Joey Logano: Winning at Martinsville could "win you a championship"

“Winning here at Martinsville might be the biggest win of the year. It might be what wins you a championship if you think about it,” Logano said Friday at Martinsville. “Being in this Round of 8 if you win, you’re obviously going to Homestead.

“You know you’re not finishing worse than fourth in points (on the season) and it gives you the ability to think about nothing but Homestead for two weeks while other teams have to think about the next two races to get themselves in.

“You’ve got to get there before you can win the championship, so I think it’s a pretty big advantage to win this one.”

There are so many drivers that have a ton of wins here at this race track because once you get it, you get it.

Joey Logano

Last fall, Jeff Gordon earned his only win of the season in this race a year ago and that victory advanced him right into the championship battle at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Still searching for first Martinsville win

Of course, to enjoy those benefits requires at victory at the historic short track – something Logano hasn’t yet been able to accomplish.

One year ago, he was on pace to earn his first victory – leading with less than 50 laps remaining – when he was wrecked out of the race by Matt Kesenth, who was later suspended by NASCAR for two races for the incident.

Logano and his Team Penske No. 22 Ford have won three consecutive poles here and have steadily improved their performance to a point where Logano believes his team is capable of pulling off the win.

“Just because we haven’t won here yet, we don’t look at it as a bad race track for us. It’s been a pretty good race track for us, we just haven’t broke through for the victory and gotten that clock yet,” he said.

“Obviously, qualifying has been very good for us, so we have that part figured out and as far as the rest of the race, we’ve been good on the long runs and we’ve been good on the short runs, but we haven’t put it all together at the same time.

“I think that’s what it’s going to take. We’ve been close before, so we’ll just keep working on that.”

Last fall’s race was Logano’s best-yet, as he led a career-best 207 laps at the track before the incident with Kenseth. His previous best effort was leading 108 laps in last year’s spring event.

Logano’s career-best finish at the track is second in the 2010 spring race, but one in which he never led a lap.

“This track is one of those tracks where once you kind of figure it out and what it is, it seems that just continues every time you’re here and that’s why I think you see a lot of people here with so many wins,” Logano said.

“There are so many drivers that have a ton of wins here at this race track because once you get it, you get it.”