NASCAR notebook: Joey Logano heads to Phoenix needing win

For Joey Logano, this is absolutely the last thing he needed.

Logano says his team is more fired up than ever and that he is “pretty pumped up” about being in Texas. “We’ve still got plenty of confidence”.

He has Matt Kenseth to thank for his spot in the final four of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. But he was summoned to the NASCAR hauler after the race for a meeting that his crew chief and vehicle owner Joe Gibbs attended.

After the final restart, Keselowski and Truex were side-by-side, and even bumped at one point before Truex went in front very briefly.

With Logano qualifying fourth and Jones sixth, they will start nose-to-tail Sunday.

Kenseth said the Team Penske driver was lying, and he had support throughout the garage after wrecking Logano on goal. “Our chase, we’re not out of it by no means”. “Guys get mad all the time”.

Logano again stood firm Friday in his stance about what happened when he wrecked Kenseth at Kansas Speedway, saying it was a product of both drivers racing hard for the win. Keselowski pushed through a gap when the No. 24 auto drifted up a bit on the outside and made contact with Gordon, who wound up 29th instead of getting a big playoff victory.

“Working with the Dote Racing team has been a great experience for me, and I am beyond thankful to the Dote family for believing in me”, said the 27-year-old Pritchett, a Cal State San Bernardino graduate. The green flag is scheduled to drop at 2:16. “It did a lot more damage than just the tire blowing apart”. He drove Logano’s auto into the wall as Logano tried to pass him. The wreck knocked loose Logano’s radio, so the driver failed to hear the team’s directive to take the No. 22 Ford to the garage and he returned to pit road.

“Was I surprised to see the fans’ reaction after something like that happened last week? It was a shock, the penalty to me”, Edwards said. “I was disgusted by it. It’s not what any driver would expect out of it”. Johnson also won this year in the April race at the track. At the time Kenseth was 10 laps down, while Logano was leading and closing in on a victory that would have secured him a spot in the championship finale.

“He was on the inside of me, I took the risk of blocking and I knew the consequences, and he moved me out of the way”, said Logano, who watched that race again this week. “That’s what I had coming to me”. I don’t know what I would have done differently or could have done differently….

Kenseth fumed about the Kansas Speedway incident for two weeks and exacted his revenge as Logano was dominating at Martinsville.