LAS VEGAS — As he has done previous seasons, Joey Logano searched for a word or phrase to serve as his team’s slogan for this year’s playoffs.
While on a road trip with wife Brittany, they discussed options. One struck them. Logano’s championship quest with his No. 22 Team Penske unit would be molded by the term “working.”
Not exactly a catchphrase that seems to emit much energy or motivational sway with it.
But look deeper, Logano says.
The word has all that a team needs to claim a championship, he noted. One can’t spell working without w-i-n.
While some might say that is hokey, let’s be honest, many team mottos can be, but if they connect to what the group is going through, than a word such as working can have a profound impact.
“The background to that was, ‘Hey, we haven’t had the best of seasons so far, but we’re working toward getting better,” Logano told NBC Sports.
“We’re working toward winning.”
That’s what Logano — who finished the regular season 15th in standings — did Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He became the first driver to clinch a spot in next month’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway.
“What a turn of events the last week!” Logano said on the radio to his team after taking the checkered flag.
The victory came a week after Logano was eliminated from the playoffs until Alex Bowman’s car was found to be underweight and disqualified. That gave Logano a second chance at the driver’s championship.
Second chances are meaningful to Logano.
“Our foundation is all about second chances,” he said of the Joey Logano Foundation. “I believe that people with a second chance will act completely different when you have a second chance in your life or your job or whatever. Maybe that’s all coming full circle right now.”
Logano’s talent was evident early in his racing career and he became known as “Sliced Bread.” Former Xfinity champion Randy LaJoie, father of current Cup driver Corey LaJoie, gave Logano that nickname. It was a reference to Logano being the best thing since sliced bread. Randy LaJoie wasn’t the only one who admired Logano. Mark Martin also touted Logano’s talents before Logano had competed in NASCAR.
Logano’s 18th birthday, making him old enough to race in NASCAR, was celebrated in a press conference that included cake at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May 2008. Three weeks later, he won at Kentucky to become the youngest series winner — a record that remains.
A couple of months later at a press conference that featured 10 different broadcast outlets and a network airing the event live, Logano was announced as the replacement for Tony Stewart in 2009 with Stewart moving to what became Stewart-Haas Racing.
Logano won as a rookie in a rain-shortened race at New Hampshire in 2009 but won only one other time in his four full seasons at Joe Gibbs Racing before he was replaced by former champion Matt Kenseth.
For a time, Logano wondered if his Cup career would be over at age 22. At the urging of Brad Keselowski, car owner Roger Penske signed Logano and Logano has been with Team Penske since 2013. It is that second chance that carries throughout his life.
As he nears the completion of his 17th season in NASCAR, the 34-year-old Logano thinks back to his early days in the series and the advice he would give his younger self.
“You got to roll with the punches,” he told NBC Sports after his Las Vegas win. “It’s so simple, but you’ve just got to keep going. Some of the stuff sounds so simple to say, but it’s hard to do.
“Don’t get me wrong. I ride the waves. When it’s down, I’m down. There’s no doubt, but the get-back-up attitude is the most important thing to have, and I guess that’s what I would probably tell that kid is just get back up and try again.
“Just keep going at it because you’re never out of it. You can look at it from either years ago when I got fired from Gibbs and had the opportunity (at Penske). You can look at that for this year and say just keep going. If you look at the first 10-15 races of the season, its like ‘oof, not good,’ but you keep going and you keep getting back up.”
Now, Logano, crew chief Paul Wolfe and the rest of the team have two weeks to prepare for the championship race. Logano seeks a third Cup title, which would make him only the 10th driver in NASCAR history with three or more Cup championships, tying him with Stewart, Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. It also would leave Logano one short of Jeff Gordon, the driver Logano idolized as a youth.
Logano’s victory Sunday was the 35th of his Cup career and 14th in the playoffs, meaning 40% of his series victories have come in the postseason — the best percentage among the drivers remaining in the Round of 8.
Had he not saved enough fuel over five overtimes to win at Nashville in June, Logano would not have been in the playoffs. He’s responded by winning two of the first seven playoff races.
This marks the sixth time he’s reached the championship race — all in even-numbered years since 2014. But it also means he’s left that final race watching someone else celebrate a championship three times.
“I know the feeling of not winning,” Logano said. “It hurts probably even more than making the Championship 4 and not winning than it does not even making the Championship 4 because you’re just that close and you know what that’s about.”
“I know that it just drives me to not have that feeling. I love the feeling of winning, but I hate the feeling of losing even more.”
But there’s little time left for any more reflection.
He’s working on what’s ahead.
