Joey Logano 1-on-1: On even-numbered year titles, turning off his phone, Richmond tires

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano is in the running for a third championship in 2024, or at least knows he has a chance as he has qualified for the playoffs that begin in four weeks.

He won a wild five-overtime chaotic race in June at Nashville Superspeedway, part of a five-race stretch where all three Penske drivers won. There are still questions about the strength of the Penske team — it has won the last two Cup titles with Logano in 2022 and Ryan Blaney in 2023 — but at least all drivers are in the playoffs.

A week before NASCAR went on a two-week hiatus, Joey Logano talked with FOX Sports about his playoff outlook (both his titles came in event years, 2018 and 2022), having two different sets of tires at Richmond (one softer that potentially will wear quickly) and how he handles trying to separate work life and home life.

How has the win changed the complexion of your season and your outlook?

I don’t know that it changed the complexion of the season a whole bunch. We are in, which is great. The goal is not just to make the playoffs. The goal is to win the championship all the time. So that’s one step of the stepping stones there. But we’re making progress. I feel like the speed is coming to us. We’ve seen it plenty of times. We’ve seen it with our team in particular plenty of times that as the year goes along and the playoffs come along, we start to find some speed. We’ve just got to stay around long enough to take advantage of speed like the 12 [of Blaney] did last year.

You say you’ve seen it before, but could you have envisioned all three of your guys at Penske winning over five weeks? The thoughts about your organization from then to now with the wins is incredible.

Some of the tracks, that makes sense — you think short tracks, just in general, we’ve been pretty strong at short tracks. Gateway [where Austin Cindric won] has been a great track for us. You’ve seen all three of us up there and Austin taking advantage of that one. Nashville, I think was a bit of a surprise. I think it was to everybody. Let’s be honest, five-overtime finishes gets kind of crazy. But, hey, you know what, to have them all locked in, for the team, it’s just a huge feather in the cap for sure to be able to just focus on the playoffs now. When you enter the playoffs with your tongue hanging out before you get there. It’s easy to get tired quick. This kind of gives you a second to recharge your batteries, shift your focus further down the road instead of just one week ahead because you know you’re there. We can just start focusing on playoff points for this point.

People look at it and you’ve won all your championships in even years. This is an even year. Does numerology help at all?

I don’t know. Usually, I’m not a believer in that stuff. But this year, it sounds good. We’ll go with it.

Richmond is one of your best tracks. What has made it one of your best tracks? Your average finish is under 10 there.

There’s a few things that kind of go into that. Honestly, I learned a lot from Brad [Keselowski], when he was my teammate on how to get around that place. I was able to use that for quite a few years. I think [crew chief] Paul [Wolfe] puts together a really good car on tracks that have more wore-out surfaces [and] tires wear out quickly. That helps. I think we kind of understand that place pretty well. We’ve consistently had top-five cars there. I haven’t won there as much as we wanted to, but we’ve been in the hunt every time. 

With two different tires there this year, what’s the challenge of that?

The first challenge, or the first answer everybody wants to know, is how much faster is [the softer tire] and how much does it last? Is it just faster the whole run, like we’ve seen the option tire up to this point or is it going to actually fall off harder? When you look at [North] Wilkesboro when we did that, you had a track that just has no fall off, so it was just faster the whole time. Not to be surprised. But Richmond is a place where it wears out tires. It could be different there, and none of us will know until we get there. I don’t know. We’ll have to kind of wait and see.

Will the whole race will be a little bit of an unknown?

In practice, you have the opportunity to put both tires on so you should have a general idea of what the speed is worth to work the strategy of the race.

What do you want to see over the last four weeks of the regular season going into the playoffs?

I’d like to get some more playoff points, obviously. Getting into the top 10 of points, … [we’ve] got to have some pretty spectacular weekends lined up all up on each other, which can happen, but the easier way would be just go win another race because regular-season points is 10th is one, ninth is two. I probably have a better chance of just winning one [for five playoff points]. There’s just more to gain there. So from a strategic side of how you call races and what you do, you put all that into the equation of what you’ve got to do in the next four races.

If you don’t have a ton of playoff points in the playoffs, does that change how you navigate the playoffs? Like at Watkins Glen?

I don’t know if it changes a whole bunch. You just don’t have a catchfence for you. We saw last year with the 19 [of Martin Truex Jr.]. The 19 had a ridiculous amount of playoff points, and they needed them. But you also saw cars that had no playoff points be able to string together three solid races and move to the next round or win one and move to the next round. All the playoff points are is a catchfence and if you have a bad couple races in a row, that’s what they’re there for. That’s what they should be there for. Those teams earned them. It makes sense — if you run good the whole season, you should have an advantage. And that is the advantage. The advantage is if you screw up or have a mistake or get caught up in something, you have something that’s going to keep you going. We still have that.

On the Harvick podcast, you said that your phone is on for work and then it’s off for your family time. I’m curious. Somebody like me, I can never turn it off. So is it easy to turn it off? Have you ever missed a call from Roger Penske?

My phone is on, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t answer if it’s something that can be pushed to tomorrow because I just want to be 100 percent all the time. But if Roger or [Penske executive] Walt [Czarencki] calls, I answer for sure. But other times, … if you’re going to do this for a long time, you have to find balance to do it correctly. If you’re going to give 100 percent to your job, you have to give 100 percent at home, too, because if things aren’t right at home, you’re probably not going to be at your best at your job, either. So I’ve got to make sure I do that balance correctly the best I can. And limiting distractions on your phone is the best way to keep in touch with your family. Whether that’s social media or emails or phone calls or text messages, the best thing you can do a lot of times is just put the thing down and be present.

Did it take you a while to learn that? Or is that something that you’ve always been able to do?

I probably wasn’t as good at it as I used to be as I am now. But I think there’s just a lot more going on. Anybody watching this with young kids knows you take your eyes off those kids for a second, they’re gone. They’re gone. They’re doing something else. They ran away. They jumped in the pool or something. They’ve done something really scary. So you’ve just got to be aware all the time. 

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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