Logano Optimistic About Turnaround at Gateway; Anxious About Bristol

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If Joey Logano is going to defend his 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship and hoist his fourth Bill France Cup at Phoenix Raceway in a couple of months, he's going to have to quickly rebound from a rough opening race to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

The 35-year-old driver and his No. 22 Team Penske team suffered from some uncharacteristic struggles in last Sunday's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, which led to a 20th-place finish. With two races remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16, Logano finds himself three points outside of the Playoff cutline.

Logano says his team has dug into last weekend's race and while there are things they could do better speed-wise, he was still proud of his team for executing what they could execute from the race track last weekend despite the rough outing.

"There are some theories of things that we probably could have done better or looked at a little differently. Just like every other race, we break it down and try to understand what we did good and where we didn't," Logano explained in a media Zoom call on Wednesday. "You know, there's a lot of good things from Darlington, most of them from the execution side of the race, but we just missed it on the raw speed side of it."

While Logano knows his No. 22 Ford Mustang Dark Horse was down on raw speed overall, he questions how far off they really were as it felt like the Toyota teams had an advantage of some kind at Darlington.

"You know, whether we missed it or if the Toyotas are that much better, it's kind of hard to answer that at times," Logano said. "Definitely, when you look at the front-running cars there, they had one thing in common. There's probably some work to be done from that standpoint as well, but we definitely weren't the best Ford, either. So, we've got some work to do."

That work will begin this weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, a flat 1.25-mile track, which falls into the category of tracks that Team Penske has figured out since the adaptation of the Next Gen car in 2022.

"It just seems like for us, right now, most of the time, our cars are pretty fast at flat, one-mile-type race tracks. Whether that's Phoenix, Gateway, Loudon -- Richmond kind of falls in there, but it's quite a bit of a different track as well, but it's similar speed-wise. Seems like we have a pretty good handle on that type of track, hopefully that's the case again," Logano stated.

However, Logano is tempering his confidence as Goodyear will be bringing a softer tire to Gateway this time around, which introduces an unknown element. Logano knows that in the NASCAR Cup Series, the competition never sleeps, and has likely found ways to close the gao to Penske at this style of track. And of course, weird stuff can happen seemingly everywhere at any time.

"Like I said, a lot of things happen in a year," Logano said. "Whether it's manufacturers or teams, [Christopher Bell] was really strong at Gateway last year, so, I would expect him to be fast again, and some others. You know, it's been a good one, but with that said, a lot can happen at that racetrack."

Logano doesn't shy away from the fact that he really likes the makeup of the schedule in the Round of 12 of the Playoffs as he has performed well historically at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway, but in order to get there to have a chance at a championship, he has to advance from the Round of 16.

If Logano has an unexpected subpar result this weekend in Gateway, the driver will head into Bristol Motor Speedway on pins and needles.

"Bristol is something that we've talked about a lot already. You know, on the concrete, the Next Gen car hasn't been in our wheelhouse," Logano admitted. "It's been a good track for me in the past, personally, with different cars. We haven't gotten it really figured out quite yet, but with that being said, Goodyear is bringing a different tire, trying to promote more tire wear. All of those types of things could change a lot of things as well. So, as we go through our setup and things that we want to change, there are a lot of different variables that are changing on top of that."

Short of a win this weekend at Gateway, the key to Logano advancing to the Round of 12 could come down to a solid performance at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he saw his 2023 Playoff run come to a premature end. While Logano is focused on the task at hand this weekend, he knows it could be imperative for his team to unload the No. 22 Ford Mustang Dark Horse with a very competitive setup, as changes throughout the race weekend in modern NASCAR are limited.

"I don't want to call it an unknown, but there are a lot of things that we're going to have to figure out when we get there. And you guys know how the rules are today, you don't have the opportunity to change much. So, we're trying to anticipate some of the things coming our way," Logano explained.

The question mark that is Bristol Motor Speedway may end up being a moot point for Logano and the No. 22 team, though, as Logano has been mighty impressive at World Wide Technology Raceway through the opening three years of the NASCAR Cup Series going to the facility.

Logano won the first-ever NASCAR Cup Series race at Gateway in 2022, and he has yet to finish outside of the top-five in his three starts at the 1.25-mile track. Heading into this weekend's race, Logano boasts a career average finish of 3.0 at the track, which is the best of any other driver.

No matter how much the competition has caught up to Team Penske at the flat tracks, it seems inconceivable that Logano could exit this weekend's race in a hole in the Playoff Standings, but there is a reason we run all of the laps instead of handing out trophies heading into the race weekend.