James: Joey Logano hopes to finally get over championship hurdle
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Joey Logano could be forgiven a sense of rush, or at least urgency.
In many senses, he must just want to get on with this. As in the good stuff, the payoff, the culmination after an expectation-filled career so far for the 25-year-old. That after the eagerly anticipated ascension to NASCAR as a teen.
But, no, he insists. Patience. The Chase for the Sprint Cup will arrive soon enough, if he earns his way back.
"We want to get back to that point so we want to get moving forward and all, but as far as where we are at now, we are focused on the race ahead of us," said Logano, who in 2009 became the youngest Sprint Cup race winner at 19. "We can’t look too far down the road. We have to get there first. We have to make the Chase. We need to win races again. We are starting back at zero."
Maybe returning to Daytona International Speedway as the defending winner in NASCAR’s biggest event is enough to assuage a driver’s thoughts for a while. Maybe his personality still is boyish enough — and the face-consuming smiles and chortle suggest such — that he can avoid being consumed by the worries of his older counterparts, such as lost time and squandered opportunities.
But Logano has plenty of reasons to want to accelerate through the slog of a 26-race Sprint Cup regular season and get on with the Chase and the process of winning a first championship. He’s been close enough to almost touch it.
It all seemed within reach in 2014. Then in his second season with Team Penske, Logano emerged as a consistent weekly threat, won five races and advanced to the championship finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway as one of four drivers with a chance to capture the title. He deflected a barrage of mental subterfuge delivered by frequent foil — and eventual champ — Kevin Harvick, maintained his focus but ultimately was undone by faulty pit stops in finishing fourth.
Logano was even better in 2015, commencing the season with a first Daytona 500 win — in a green-white-checkered finish — and spending the entirety of the regular season in the top four in driver points despite not winning for a second time until Watkins Glen International in the 22nd race. He entered the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup in fourth place, three points off the lead. He finished sixth at Chicagoland Speedway, third at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and tenth at Dover International Speedway to lead the standings.
Logano established himself as a clear front-runner in the ensuing three-race elimination segment with wins at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, but the seed of his undoing had been sewn. In bumping Matt Kenseth — who was scuttling for a win to advance to the next round — in the final laps at Kansas, Logano triggered a sort of generational blood feud with the 43-year-old driver who replaced him in the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
A debate on ethics and tactics ensued — the discussion being taken up by NASCAR Chairman Brian France, who deemed the move "quintessential NASCAR" — with Logano being nitpicked from all angles about a perceived arrogance in an incident with a driver with an affable public persona. Logano continues to assert that he did nothing wrong.
"Nobody wants to be thought of as a villain. We all want to be thought of as a hero," said his teammate, 2012 series champion Brad Keselowski. "I think Joey is smart enough and been around long enough to know you have to be the villain in this sport before you can be the hero. Every driver that has had any measure of success in this sport, it has been that way."
Logano benefited from a controversial finish at Talladega — holding the lead when an incident with Harvick froze the field in a green-white-checkered finish — and entered the third round in prime position. It was wrested from him quickly, however.
Leading the final laps at Martinsville Speedway and seeking a fourth consecutive win that would have automatically qualified him for the championship final, Logano was stalked by the lapped Kenseth and intentionally wrecked, resulting in a 37th-place finish. He was 40th at Texas Motor Speedway and third at Phoenix International Raceway and sixth in the final standings.
And now be begins anew. Logano could assure himself that he has seen almost every type of negative situation over the past two seasons and gained study material for another NASCAR final. But even in his relative youth, Logano is old enough and has been around long enough to not be fooled by that sort of thinking.
"I’m sure I haven’t seen it all yet," he laughed. "You never know what this sport is going to throw out at you. There’s definitely been some scenarios the last few years, to say the least. It’s sports. You never know what is going to happen. You have to roll with the punches sometimes just to keep motivated, keep confident and keep your head where you need to have it."
And that is what’s directly in front of him.
Follow Brant James on Twitter @brantjames.
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