Paul Wolfe came close to calling Joey Logano down pit road for fuel before the final overtime attempt at Nashville Superspeedway but figured the team had gone that far, and it was worth the gamble to stick it out.
Logano made it work and drove a stumbling fuel tank across the finish line for the No. 22 team’s first win. A win that cliches the Team Penske group a spot in the postseason instead of bouncing around the bubble spot.
Wolfe and Logano went 110 laps on their final tank of fuel. A rash of cautions in the final stage, including five overtime attempts, helped make the risk pay off.
“It was (a hard decision to stay on track), and I was so close to calling him down that last one because, at that point, you’re only so accurate,” Wolfe said. “My engineers are figuring the fuel mileage manually, and then we have simulations tools and things predicting how many laps we can run, which is based … you can tell when the engine’s running how much Joey’s saving. And they weren’t totally lining up. But I went with the one that told us we could run the longest. But that last one, that one said we were running out, so at that point, it was very tough.
“I thought it was worth the risk. It’s hard … I know we’re on the points cuff, but you have to figure over the next few weeks someone else is going to win a race, and then it’s all about winning, I feel like. So, I think that made the decision a little easier knowing someone else behind us in points is pretty likely to win a race with all the different style tracks coming up as we lead into the playoffs.”
The fuel window for Nashville Superspeedway is approximately 80 laps. But with Logano running in the middle of the field as opposed to in clean air as the leader, plus the caution periods, the variables fell his way.