Joey Logano Confident Revived Title Hopes Could Lead to Third Championship

With another chance at the championship, Joey Logano believes his No. 22 team is capable of going all the way, despite taking on an underdog personna.

Now with a second chance at capturing his third NASCAR Cup Series championship, Joey Logano believes his No. 22 Ford Mustang Dark Horse team is capable of getting the job done, | Photo Credit: Danny Hansen, NKP for Ford Performance

When Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 finished, Joey Logano knew that his time in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs had finished. What he didn’t know, was that three hours later, the defibrillator would be brought out to revive his shot at a third championship.

Logano was the sole benefactor of the disqualification of Alex Bowman. The Team Penske driver took the checkered flag a mere four points below the cutline, but once the Hendrick Motorsports driver was stripped of his 18th-place result, Logano jumped 20 points above it.

“I was obviously surprised,” Logano said in a Tuesday media availability. “I heard rumor before that of a delay in tech and some of those things going on. Usually, nothing happens. It was kind of a surprise to hear that. Typically, by the time you roll the car off the scales, they give them the opportunity to put weight in the cars and you’re usually fine, but in this case that wasn’t the case.”

The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion describes his reaction to the breaking news as being “cautiously optimistic”, knowing that many were expecting Hendrick Motorsports to file an appeal (they did not), which would have drug the uncertainly out to the middle of the week.

By the time Logano had found out, though, the 34-year-old driver says he was already in the process of accepting the defeat he suffered a couple of hours beforehand and focusing forward to the final four events of the NASCAR Cup Series campaign.

“I was starting to move forward,” Logano said. “You get there literally the moment we get out of the race car. It takes a little big to get your thoughts collected and honestly, by the time I was driving home, my wife and I were talking about something far more important than what we were doing at the racetrack. My mind was already starting to shift on what were the next moves and kind of getting over the race. Then I started hearing the rumors from there and the pone started to ring shortly after.”

It was a stroke of good fortune for Logano, who had suffered from a fairly difficult regular season this year. The Team Penske driver made it to the Playoffs courtesy of a quintuple-overtime victory at Nashville, the only win the No. 22 had scored prior to the playoff-opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

With Logano now promoted into the semi-final round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Team Penske now has two bullets in the chamber – Logano, a two-time champion, and defending series champion Ryan Blaney – to collect the team’s third consecutive championship in NASCAR’s premier division.

“I feel confident in the speed we have in our cars,” Logano said. “Kansas, we had a lot of speed and almost won the first stage there. We have to clean up a couple issues on the execution side. Talladega is Talladega, we got caught up in the big crash there, but the speed we also had this weekend at the ROVAL looked pretty solid to me to where we are a Championship 4 caliber race team.”

“The stats may not look like it. It may look like were underdogs from the outside looking in, but internally we feel very confident in our race teams that we can make a run at this thing and get ourselves in the Championship 4. We’ve seen it in the past where you get in there and anything can happen at Phoenix.”

“The goal right now is to look at the next three races and how do we maximize that We can point out way in. We’re only 11 out, so it’s not a lot of points by no means. It can happen very quickly, so one race at a time. Right now, the focus is Vegas, and we’ll try to maximize the day there.”

The biggest advantage for Logano? The Middletown, Connecticut native has won NASCAR Cup Series events at all three racetracks that make up the ‘Round of 8’. Logano remains among the most experienced of those still in contention for the title, and that wealth of experience could prove valuable.

Plus, as long as there's a Team Penske decal plastered on the front bumper of the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse, there's no counting out Joey Logano, since -- as Ryan Blaney proved last season -- the historic organization has been known to make some late-season runs to a championship trophy.

Asked about how surreal this season has been, Logano provided an answer that perfectly encompasses the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs situation over the last 72 hours: It’s NASCAR, man. I don’t know what to tell you. Expect the unexpected. You’ve got to go and just roll with the punches and go with the flow and just continue on.”