{"id":202080,"date":"2025-10-10T07:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T07:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/202080\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T07:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T07:01:10","slug":"love-him-or-loathe-him-playoff-joey-logano-shows-up-all-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/202080\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Him or Loathe Him, Playoff Joey Logano Shows Up All the Same"},"content":{"rendered":"

You simply can\u2019t put enough dirt on top of Joey Logano<\/a> to make the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and future Hall of Famer disappear.<\/p>\n

Three of his peers can eviscerate the competition and put together a campaign so dominant they became known as the Big 3, but that didn\u2019t keep Logano from a championship.<\/p>\n

NASCAR can introduce a brand-new car in a year when parity ran rampant, but that didn\u2019t keep Logano from a championship.<\/p>\n

Logano can be eliminated from the playoffs altogether after the Round of 12 \u2014 and after a disqualification, even that can\u2019t keep him from a championship.<\/p>\n

So who\u2019s to say that this year, when he snuck into the Round of 8 by the skin of his teeth and has to face the likes of Denny Hamlin<\/a>, Kyle Larson<\/a>, Ryan Blaney<\/a> and William Byron<\/a> for the title, will yield a different result?<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

Joey Logano Has Jimmie Johnson\u2019s Golden Horseshoe<\/p>\n

Logano, who won the Cup title in 2018, 2022 and 2024, may not have won his championships in the same way that Richard Petty<\/a>, David Pearson<\/a> and Dale Earnhardt<\/a> did. Debates about NASCAR\u2019s playoff format aside, he\u2019s become a modern legend of the sport because of his ability to pounce on every opportunity.<\/p>\n

Therein lies what makes Logano and the No. 22 team so dangerous in their quest for a fourth title: opportunism. That\u2019s what makes the field understandably afraid of what Logano can do over the next four races.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Logano has taken on a reputation as a driver who shows up when the lights are the brightest. And while fans can complain that said bright lights are a product of NASCAR\u2019s playoff format, there\u2019s no denying that in the clutch, there\u2019s no better driver than Logano.<\/p>\n

That was evident at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, where a late charge to 20th on fresh tires gave Logano the advantage over Ross Chastain<\/a> for the final transfer spot. It was evident at Phoenix Raceway last year, when Logano held off a hard-charging Blaney to win his third championship. It was evident at Las Vegas Motor Speedway a season ago, when Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe<\/a> orchestrated a perfect fuel mileage strategy to win their way into the championship race.<\/p>\n

One could go on and on about the laundry list of Logano\u2019s clutch moments, a list he very well could add onto at any point over the next three weeks.<\/p>\n

This year has not been some kind of miraculous turnaround for the No. 22 team, a team that has struggled to consistently find winning speed since 2022. Logano\u2019s 2022 title run featured his worst average finish since 2017, a year in which he failed to make the playoffs. His infamous 2024 championship run featured the worst average finish in history for a Cup champion at 17.1.<\/p>\n

Aside from his lone win of 2025 at Texas Motor Speedway on May 4, Logano\u2019s 2025 campaign has been largely devoid of highlights. It has been, by the numbers, a championship hangover. Logano has only 10 top-10 finishes and a very average average finish of 16.2 through 32 races.<\/p>\n

His quiet method of going about his business is why, even in a year when he\u2019s the defending champion, nobody really took Logano serious as a bona fide title threat until now. Only when Logano made the penultimate round of the postseason at Charlotte did his peers likely begin to shudder as they think of what he could do over the next four races.<\/p>\n

Vegas opens the Round of 8 again this year, and after a Team Penske-affiliated driver in Josh Berry<\/a> won at LVMS in March, it\u2019s not at all unthinkable that Wolfe could build Logano his best car of the season and find a way to win on pure speed rather than fuel mileage.<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

NASCAR Needs a Rivalry More Than a Playoff<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not crazy to think that Logano, who\u2019s built a reputation as one of the best superspeedway racers in modern history, could avoid the Talladega Superspeedway chaos and find a way to win at NASCAR\u2019s biggest and baddest track; after all, he finished fifth at Talladega in April before being disqualified.<\/p>\n

Martinsville Speedway closes the round, and Penske has made the Paperclip its playground in recent years. Blaney has won the last two fall races at the track, and Logano has never finished worse than 10th at Martinsville in the Next Gen era.<\/p>\n

All of this is to say don\u2019t count out Logano till the checkered flag falls at Martinsville with him firmly on the outside looking in at the Championship 4 \u2014 and it might be advisable to wait until post-race inspection is done, too.<\/p>\n

Love him or loathe him, playoff Logano arrives all the same. <\/p>\n

\"Donate<\/a>
\n\"20240706<\/a><\/p>\n

A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You simply can\u2019t put enough dirt on top of Joey Logano to make the three-time NASCAR Cup Series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-202080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}