Strong Martinsville run will serve Logano well

The color of the leaves in the Virginia foothills will have changed when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series revisits the paper-clip layout in November, but so will Logano’s status as a potential Martinsville favorite. The recent upturn in short-track expertise will serve him well in the return trip, the opening race to the Contender Round in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs.

In his first 10 Martinsville starts, Logano had netted just one top-five finish at the tricky, .526-mile track. After Sunday’s rally from a first-half spin to a third-place finish in the STP 500, he now has three top-fives in a row, potentially setting the table for improving his title stock in the season’s late stages.

“The track seems to change a lot from the spring to the fall, but, directionally, I think there are things we can improve on still,” Logano said. “We’re only good for a certain amount of time, and we just need to make our cars a little faster for a longer time.”

Had the kinks ironed out Sunday, Logano might’ve had a weekend for the books. He swept the pole positions for both the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series events, then cashed in with a victory on the tailgate tour in the Saturday matinee. Had he finished two spots better in Sunday’s main event, he would have become the first driver to sweep the poles and wins in a race weekend for two NASCAR national series, based on records dating back to the XFINITY Series joining the national ranks in 1982.

The Martinsville upswing reflects Logano’s overall improvement the last two seasons, especially this year. Since punching his 2015 Chase ticket early with a victory in the season-opening Daytona 500, Logano has kept pouring it on. Only two other drivers — reigning champion Kevin Harvick and comeback kid Martin Truex Jr. — have top-10 finishes in all six races this season.

“I’m proud of this whole organization and everybody here because we continue to knock off top-10 finishes, and a top-five here,” said Todd Gordon, crew chief for Logano’s Team Penske No. 22 Ford. “Both races last year were top-fives here, and to get a third place here is something we can build off of coming back for the Chase race here in the fall, which is a pretty important one.”

The importance of November doesn’t just pertain to Martinsville. It also applies to Texas Motor Speedway, which follows the Virginia short track in the spring and fall on the 36-race Sprint Cup schedule. Logano has momentum on his side there, too, with three top-fives in the last four races at the 1.5-mile track.

Logano’s next order of business in the Lone Star State is defending his race win once the Sprint Cup circuit resumes April 11 with the Duck Commander 500 (7:30 p.m. ET, FOX). But before getting back to work, his Penske crew aims to take full advantage of the rare idle weekend on the 2015 slate.

“We’ll dig for a little bit here this week and then the guys will get some time off later in the week,” Gordon said. “Give them a long week to enjoy it — we only get three of these during the season, so you can’t burn everybody out. We’ll dig for a couple days this week, get these guys some time off for Easter weekend, then we’ll dig back at it the Monday after Easter and start working on Texas to make sure we’re as good as we need to be there.”

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