LAS VEGAS – Not too long ago Joey Logano knew where he stood when it came to Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
With an average finish of 8.6, it was Logano’s best track that wasn’t a road course and that had been on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit for more than four years.
Now, in the age of the Next Gen car?
“I think it’s funny when I get that question, ‘How are you gonna run this weekend?’,” Logano said Saturday. “No clue. I used to have an idea … as we go to Vegas. ‘Yeah, that’s one of my best tracks. I should be really good.’ I’ve got no clue how we’re gonna run.”
Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 (3:30 p.m. ET on Fox) will be the Cup Series’ first race on a 1.5-mile oval with the Next Gen car. It comes after a thrilling race last weekend at Auto Club Speedway, the Daytona 500 and its debut in the Clash at the L.A. Coliseum.
More: Pennzoil 400 Qualifying/Practice Results and Starting Lineup
Making the competition better at intermediate tracks like Las Vegas was one of the hopes of the Next Gen car’s introduction into the Cup Series.
Logano, who will start sixth Sunday, enters the race having won twice at Las Vegas.
But with a car no one knows much about in competition, Logano thinks “no one has an advantage anymore.”
“The good thing is though that it’s still a race car,” Logano said. “It’s still got four tires. It still goes fast. It’s still Vegas and a lot of the things I’ve done in the past are probably gonna work with this car as a driver, but with setup and all that’s gonna be completely different. How you race was way different in Fontana last week. I had to unlearn a lot of things last week, especially on restarts because this car can do things that our old car just could not do, so it’s been interesting and a lot of fun, but it’s hard to say if you’re gonna be any good or not anymore.”
This car, at least in the windy conditions seen during qualifying Saturday, may be faster than the old Gen 6 car when it performed with a high downforce, low horsepower package. Pole-sitter Christopher Bell’s top speed was 182.673 mph. That was more than 2 mph than the pole speed (180.517 mph) the last time qualifying was held for the Pennzoil 400 in 2019.
“We’re just starting to figure this thing out and we don’t have much time to figure things out while we have a whopping 30 minutes today,” Logano said with a laugh. “We don’t really have much time or really the ability to change a lot on the race car on the race weekend, so it keeps it interesting.”
One interesting aspect about last weekend’s race was the amount of parity seen in the final running order, with drivers like Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, Daniel Hemric and Daniel Suarez among the top 10.
Richard Childress Racing’s momentum continued from Fontana into qualifying Saturday, as both Dillon and Tyler Reddick – who led 90 laps and won the first two stages – earned top 10 starting spots.
Also in the top 10: JTG Daugherty Racing’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (ninth) and Chase Briscoe, who will start in the top five for the first time.
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Jones, who finished third in Fontana for Petty GMS Motorsports, only managed a 23rd-starting spot.
Jones said Friday that the Next Gen car has “opened up so many doors for” for his team.
“It’s easy to look at a sport like golf and think when someone gets on a hot streak it is easy to keep it going.,” Jones said Friday. “Honestly, racing is very similar and when you get kind of rolling and it’s not just me, it’s the team, it’s Dave (Elenz, crew chief), it’s everybody. When they get rolling on that confident hot streak, it’s easier to keep that momentum going. The Next Gen car I think has been great to us so far you know two races in. Hopefully just continue it going this weekend. This is a lot different track than Fontana. It’s easy to say that and it will be a totally different challenge for a race car than what fought last week and balance last week. It’ll be a learning process.”
Jones said that if the rules surrounding the Next Gen car “continue being enforced the way they are right now with the parts and the pieces, I think that parity will last a while.”
Jones said that the gap between teams “is 90% closer to what it was the last few years.”
“Right now, I think it’s definitely at a point where the driver is able to make a bigger difference than in years past.”