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'The job's not done yet' - Logano still has work to do to secure third title
Joey Logano was not a NASCAR Cup Series championship favorite when the regular season ended in early September. Or at least he wasn’t statistically.
Logano ended the regular season 15th in the championship standings with a Nashville Superspeedway victory that clinched his spot in the postseason. The rest of his body of work through 26 races included eight top-10 finishes, 264 laps led, and seven playoff points.
But Logano is the first driver locked into the Championship 4 after what some might call a surprising victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Did the No. 22 team overachieve in earning a spot in the championship race?
“Maybe in your mind,” Logano laughed after Sunday’s win. “I don’t know. For us, our goal always is to make it and we truly believe we can. There have been many years where, by the stats, it doesn’t look too good. But we’ve been able to capitalize when it matters, and in the playoffs, we just turn the wick up.
“I don’t know what exactly that is, but it just happens. So, you look at our playoff wins and our history versus our regular season wins, it’s kind of crazy percentage-wise what that is.
Logano loves the postseason, which is something he was quick to remind everyone of back in September. The time of year when the pressure is at an all-time high is where Logano thrives and he was as confident as ever for the reset.
Las Vegas was Logano’s second win of the postseason. He opened things up by winning at Atlanta Motor Speedway to clinch a spot in the Round of 12.
Through the first seven postseason races, Logano has an average finish of 14.28 with three top-10 finishes. And if he were to add a third championship, Logano would stand alone as the driver with the most championships who is still a full-time active Cup Series competitor.
“We just seem like when the playoffs come around, we do a really good job,” Logano continued. “I’m very proud of that, but I also always think of what Roger [Penske] says, and it’s one of my favorite things that he ever said: ‘Don’t trip on your own press clippings. Don’t get too over your skis.’
“The job’s not done yet. We gotta keep staring out the windshield and keep our heads down and grinding for the next few weeks to get ourselves an advantage.”
Paul Wolfe became Logano’s crew chief in 2020, and in addition to winning the 2022 series championship, the duo has 12 wins together over the last five seasons. With the victory Sunday, Wolfe is now the winningest active crew chief (at 41) in the Cup Series after breaking a tie with Rodney Childers (40).
Wolfe and Logano have been one of the most successful crew chief/driver pairings over the last few years.
“When it comes to pressure situations, he loves that, and he’s obviously really good at it,” Wolfe said of his driver. “There are certainly drivers that, under pressure, can’t perform.
“We’re all humans. We’re not robots. So, the mental aspect, the emotion side of it, it’s real, and I’ve seen it play out. You can watch it throughout the garage with different drivers and I think if anything, these situations make him perform at another level, and I know that’s hard to understand how that could even be possible. You feel like drivers are getting all they can no matter what the situation but … he’s just able to get to another level and the greatest drivers can do that under pressure.”
In two of their three wins, Logano had to save fuel. Nashville went to five overtimes before it was decided and Wolfe made the call to stretch the mileage in the final stage at Las Vegas while many others, including the heavy hitters, pitted. For Wolfe, those are examples of Logano’s talent to continue to make lap time despite a high-pressure situation.
“We’re not always the fastest car, but I feel like as a team, we’re one of the best teams, if not the best in the garage, at putting everything together and that’s what this sport is about,” Wolfe said. “The fastest car very seldom wins these races. So, we try to make sure we’ve covered off on everything. Ultimately, we want the fastest car we can put on the racetrack, and we try to do that every week, but if you don’t, you can’t not do the rest of it.
“And doing the rest of it at the highest level is what allows us to be able to do things like we did (Sunday).”
Logano and Wolfe were last in the Championship 4 in 2022, when they won the finale to win the championship. Logano has three wins at Phoenix Raceway.
Kelly Crandall
Kelly has been on the NASCAR beat full-time since 2013, and joined RACER as chief NASCAR writer in 2017. Her work has also appeared in NASCAR.com, the NASCAR Illustrated magazine, and NBC Sports. A corporate communications graduate from Central Penn College, Crandall is a two-time George Cunningham Writer of the Year recipient from the National Motorsports Press Association.
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