For Joey Logano, racing at a track like Indianapolis Motor Speedway comes with three goals.
“It’s all about getting trophies and rings and making out with bricks,” Logano said following Sunday’s Brickyard 400.
But Logano’s second-place finish means car owner Roger Penske, who has 16 Indianapolis 500 wins, will have to wait until 2016 to win his first Brickyard 400.
Logano finished second Sunday to Kyle Busch, while Brad Keselowski finished 10th after leading 17 laps thanks to pit strategy. Penske now has four runner-up finishes in the Brickyard 400.
“You come to Indy, it’s all about the win, either (you) win or finish last,” said Logano, who led 27 laps in the first half of the race after starting second. “It doesn’t really matter anywhere in between. At least that’s the way I race when we come to a racetrack like this.”
That’s the way Logano raced on two green-white-checkered attempts to finish the race, chasing Busch, taking the lead on a Lap 162 restart before Busch reclaimed it and led the last two circuits of the 2.5-mile track.
“I knew my run wasn’t good enough to get inside of him,” Logano said. “Really all I had was to be able to just get him off line and I drove in, went shallow on him, just trying to see if I could loosen him up, which didn’t seem to work with this package.”
Logano did eventually get Busch to “wash up” going into a corner but he said a lack of speed in the engine kept him from being able to overtake the No. 18.
“I go to the gas and it just wasn’t going to accelerate underneath him and wasn’t able to continue that,” Logano said. “That was kind of my last-ditch effort. I tried one more time just to do something, got loose off of (Turn) 1 and that was kind of the end of it.”
Even with the Penske NASCAR drought at Indy, Logano said the worst part of the afternoon was finishing second for the second time in three races to Busch, who has now won four of the last five races.
“I’m glad he’s back and all, but geez, oh Pete, you don’t have to come back like that,” Logano said. “Man, we’ve been working our guts out all year and he comes right back and doing it.”
The whole affair left a bad taste in Logano’s mouth during the cool-down laps.
“I was just angry on the radio,” Logano said. "(Roger Penske) was happy, so he was saying I did a good job, which I know it stinks and a lot of times it’s hard to take the high road when it stinks.”