Logano seeks answers as playoff pressure rises

Joey Logano is not shying away from the predicament his No. 22 Team Penske team finds itself in.

"We're in a rut," Logano simply put it Tuesday night before a screening of the 'Logan Lucky' movie he has a part in. With five races left before the start of the playoffs, a rut is far from the place Logano needs to be. Certainly not when he's one of the drivers on the outside looking in and struggling to contend with the front runners.

"Speed's been an issue, no doubt. And it all starts with that," Logano said. "Indy, we had decent speed, and we were in position to possibly win that race with the right strategy, cautions going the right away, all that. We were in position to win that race.

"The speed we had in Pocono, I don't think you could pick the right strategy and we were going to win the race. We were going to fight for 10th. It's hard to win with a 10th-place car; you're really going to have to get lucky to make that happen. We've got to get faster. Our cars are better at the shorter tracks right now because we think we're a little behind in the aero department."

Since his win at Richmond on April 30, Logano has earned three top-10 finishes with just 17 laps led. Even more glaring, three of Logano's four DNF's this season also came during that stretch of races.

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking on trying to improve. A year after Logano was one of the final four drivers competing for the championship at Homestead, he and crew chief Todd Gordon are facing the reality of not even qualifying for the post-season – something the duo has done each year since Logano joined Team Penske in 2013. In two of those four years, Logano advanced all the way to the final round.

Spending their summer fighting for relevance instead of preparing to be among the headliners is an unusual feeling for Logano.

"It's not where we want to be. It's odd because we're used to fighting to get on to the next round, and this isn't much different than that," said Logano. "It's earlier in the season than we're used to doing it, so if we're not careful it'll wear us down when we do make it into the playoffs.

"We still have to keep our goals in check, but it's different right now than what we thought it was going to be."

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Of course, Logano could lock himself into the playoffs at any time over the next five races with a victory. He did that in Richmond, only to have the win's playoff value stripped away after inspection. With Richmond being the regular season finale, has Logano started having nightmares his season could hinge on a return trip to the Virginia short track?

"Well, it's a thought, yeah. I wouldn't say it's a nightmare yet," he said. "Really, in all honesty, winning that race would feel really, really good. That would be a little extra motivation to win that one again."

But of these final stretch of races, Logano knows where he must capitalize.

"I don't think we throw away points yet, but we're getting closer to that point we're going to have to win. The positive side is the next four out of five races we've won at before – all of them besides Darlington," Logano said. "So, we've done this before. We won Richmond this year. Bristol is one of our best tracks that we always run up front at. Michigan has been a good track, but the faster stuff hasn't been our forte, this year at least.

"Watkins Glen has been one of our best tracks the last couple of years. Finishing second (in 2016) and then winning the year before. And we had a fast car last year; we actually could have won the race but I ripped the splitter off the car, and that kind of killed it.

"I feel like we should be competitive this weekend. Maybe our best shot might be this weekend. So, we'll fire away at it and see what we can do."