NASCAR Sprint Cup Goody's 500

Logano plans to stick with his recipe for success

Joey Logano will try to win his fourth consecutive race today at Martinsville Speedway, where he will start on the pole.
Joey Logano will try to win his fourth consecutive race today at Martinsville Speedway, where he will start on the pole.

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Harry Gant understands what Joey Logano is experiencing these days.

Logano has won three consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup races as he heads into today's Goody's 500 at Martinsville Speedway. That's one victory away from tying NASCAR's modern-day record of four in a row that is held by eight drivers, including Gant.

"Everything is clicking," Gant said of what happens to a driver and his team during such a streak. "You're going so well, you don't want anything to be different. You don't want anything to change. You get to four in a row and you want to get it to five, six or seven."

Logano's streak comes at a critical time. All three victories came in the second round of the Chase. The first -- at Charlotte -- automatically qualified Logano for the third round of the playoffs, which begin at Martinsville. The other two, at Kansas and Talladega , were essentially for good measure and put pressure on the rest of the field to advance on points.

"We have momentum and we know the recipe to win," said Logano, who has six victories this season, including the Daytona 500. "That's more than anyone can say, at least in the last three races. But there are still a lot of very good race teams that are very fast and that we'll be competing against all the way to the end."

Winning No. 4 won't be easy. Although Logano is starting from the pole today, he's never won at Martinsville in 13 career starts.

But sometimes it doesn't matter where you're racing or what the circumstances might be. That's what Gant remembers about 1991, when he took that four-race streak into the Holly Farms 400 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Gant started his streak at the Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. It continued through Richmond, Dover and Martinsville.

"It carries over everywhere, all the way from yourself through to the pit crew and the team owner," Gant said. "It picks up the pit crew a bunch. Everyone is pumped up on the pit stops. We had fast pit stops the whole way through that."

Although he trailed Dale Earnhardt by a substantial margin in the points standings, Gant arrived in North Wilkesboro feeling invincible. But he had won just once at the track, located 20 miles from his home in Taylorsville, N.C.

Gant was the last to qualify but bumped Davey Allison from the pole. When the race started Gant resumed his dominant ways, leading 350 laps.

Then it all came to an end for Gant when a 10-cent brake part failed on his No. 33 Skoal Bandit Oldsmobile. Gant's streak was finished with a second-place finish behind Earnhardt.

Gant, now 75, still lives in Taylorsville, where he owns a cattle ranch with his family.

"My brakes went and we had to ride it out that way," Gant said. "If we had won that, there's no telling how many more we would have won. That's how confident you feel."

Logano is competing against other drivers who have also won multiple races in a row. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are among the eight tied for the record of four consecutive. Johnson's streak occurred during the 2007 Chase, which he won.

"It's definitely a zone," Gordon said. "Sometimes when you're in that zone, you're fighting hard to win races. You don't think you have it, but you're still finding your way into Victory Lane. Next thing you know, you feel like you can win every race.

"It's amazing how hard it is to get yourself to that level of confidence. When you get there, it can carry you for a long way."

Kyle Busch also won three in a row this summer, a stretch that included winning four of five races.

"It feels too easy," Busch said. "You're wondering when it's going to run out. I remember asking the guys on my team: Is it really this easy? How is this possible?"

CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS

Crafton wins 5th

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Matt Crafton climbed back into the championship hunt by winning the Truck Series race Saturday at Martinsville Speedway.

The two-time defending series champion won for the fifth time this season to chip into the cushion of points-leader Erik Jones. With three races remaining, Jones leads Tyler Reddick by three points and Crafton by 10.

"This feels very, very good," Crafton said. "It's been a trying last two months for us, but we finally got this thing back in victory lane."

Crafton had a poor race last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway to fall 23 points behind Jones, but Jones was involved in a late accident Saturday and finished 10th to allow Reddick and Crafton to tighten the standings.

Reddick finished fifth.

"We were in really good position at the end ... and I actually hit the curb and cost us a couple more spots," Reddick said. "It was as clean as Martinsville could get. It's a shame we got fifth, really, because I thought we could have finished third or second."

John Hunter Nemechek was second, followed by Cameron Hayley, Cole Custer and Reddick. Timothy Peters was sixth, while Brandon Jones, Caleb Holman, Johnny Sauter and Jones rounded out the top 10.

The victory was the second career victory at Martinsville for Crafton and the 10th of his career. He credited his ThorSport Racing crew for giving him a strong enough Toyota to win Saturday.

"We weren't very good on the short runs," Crafton said. "But I never give up on these guys and they kept fine-tuning it, fine-tuning it."

Sports on 11/01/2015

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