Joey Logano Teeters on the Brink of NASCAR Cup Elimination

Last October’s Charlotte Motor Speedway race weekend swept Joey Logano through a dramatic range of highs and lows.

Logano finished eighth in a race won by Kyle Larson, and that finish booted Logano from the Cup playoffs. He was “bummed,” as he described the moments after the race.

“I was bummed that we were just a little short, but it is what it is,” Logano said Saturday. “That’s how I am at the end of the race. It is what it is. I can’t change it now, and you just have to keep looking out the windshield, and we went home. We had a fairly normal evening. Then I got a call, and it was like, ‘Hey, honey, you ain’t gonna believe it. We’re back in.’”

Back at the race track, Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman had been disqualified by NASCAR, and that change lifted Logano from oblivion to playoff life.

His race toward the championship refreshed by Bowman’s misfortune, Logano took full advantage, winning the next week at Las Vegas to lock into the final four and then winning the season finale at Phoenix to notch his third Cup title.

“Obviously, the next seven days after that changed everything because we went from out to in to winning Vegas and in the Championship 4 and winning our third title, so just a quick turn of events, but that’s NASCAR racing for you,” Logano said. “It’s unpredictable. Things can change really, really fast. You just have to keep rolling with it.”

Fast-forward to this year, and Logano finds himself in troubled waters once again. The playoff field will be cut to eight after Sunday’s race, and Logano will start the race eighth in points, 13 above the cutline. Perilous territory.

Things are tight around the cutline. Chase Briscoe is seventh, 21 points above the line. Ross Chastain, in ninth, is 13 below the line. Bubba Wallace is 26 back, and Tyler Reddick is 29^th.

Logano will have an interest in keeping up with the progress of the drivers who share space with him around the cutline.

“I want everything, all the information I can possibly get said to me,” he said. “I think everybody knows you make better decisions when you have all the data, and we’re asked to make decisions in the heat of the battle live. There’s no time to talk it through in a boardroom. We’ve got to make the decision at that moment, so the more prepared we can be the better, but also understanding what the situation is, what’s going on around me and what I have to do inside the race car.”

Logano races against history. Ford hasn’t had a win in the CMS Roval race since Ryan Blaney scored in 2018. Logano has not won the Roval race, although he has six top-10 finishes at the track and is the leader in that category.

To date, the playoffs have been a mixed bag for Logano. He was 20th at Darlington, fifth at Gateway, fifth at Bristol, fourth at New Hampshire and 21st last week at Kansas. Team Penske remains solidly in the hunt for another championship, with Ryan Blaney, the winner at Loudon, guaranteed of a spot in the round of eight and Austin Cindric still alive (although barely), 48 points below the cutline.

“The goal when you start the season is to win the championship, and it takes a lot of stepping stones to get to that place,” Logano said. “One of the largest ones is just getting to the Championship 4. That’s the one closest to the championship, so getting to the Championship 4 is so hard to do, so when we won that race [at Las Vegas], you automatically know, ‘Gosh, we’re in it. We’ve got a chance.’ And then you know that you’ve got a couple weeks advantage on everybody.

“The excitement is real and then it goes straight back to the pressure automatically kicks in. Maybe 30 minutes after the race and the adrenaline starts to come down, you’re like, ‘We’ve got to start working on Phoenix now.’ It starts happening really fast because you’re that close. As great as it is to make the Championship 4, it equally sucks to not win it—to get that far and not accomplish the goal. That hurts so bad, so you just want to make sure you have everything ready.”