Joey Logano won his third NASCAR Cup Series title in 2024 in some pretty dramatic fashion, but the veteran’s drive for a title was easily one of the biggest storylines of the year due largely to the controversy that surrounded his run through the later rounds.
Now Logano is speaking out with a bold message being delivered to the ‘haters’ questioning the legitimacy of his championship.
It all started at the Charlotte ROVAL race in the playoffs. Logano had fallen short of making it into the Round of 8, eliminated with four points back from the cutoff. But, Alex Bowman’s car — who was ahead of Logano in the points — failed a post-race inspection and was disqualified. The disqualification for being underweight, however, vaulted Logano into the next round. So many argue this turn of events gave Logano a lifeline that eventually helped him win the championship.
During a recent interview with Kenny Wallace in the “Kenny Conversation”, Logano did not sugarcoat it when addressing his critics. He admitted that his regular season wasn’t the best, but his team was the best when it counted the most. He said:
“My point is saying that the regular season matters so much, and we had to play from behind the eight ball the whole time. We still had the opportunity to win the championship even though we didn’t have a great regular season. But we got hot when it mattered; we won the races that mattered, and we won the championship because of that. And if you don’t like that, you can kiss my […].”
A sluggish first half of the season couldn’t slow down Joey Logano in the playoffs. He had a wild run in the postseason. He won three critical races and topped that with a thumping win at Phoenix in the championship decider. Any questions that people may have had about his capability to perform under pressure were erased by those performances and thus made him one of NASCAR’s biggest clutch racers.
The Phoenix finale also confirmed his status as one of the few drivers in NASCAR history with three or more Cup Series championships.
Reigniting the Playoff Debate: Playoffs vs. Consistency
Still, Joey Logano’s 2024 title has caused a lot of discussions on changes in NASCAR’s playoff system and the effects of technical disqualifications. Penalties issued to Alex Bowman opened up the door for the Team Penske driver to move to the Round of 8 after being eliminated in the first place.
Logano’s average finish of 17.1 is the lowest average finish for any Cup Series champion in history. For the critics, this reinforces the argument that the format is flawed. The reality is, the system doesn’t always reward season-long consistency in the end, which is why Logano’s title is built on his key wins and some fortunate breaks.
That has reignited calls to review the playoff system. Some suggest rewarding season long consistency or changing the elimination procedure a bit more to reflect a drivers overall performance. But every proposed change brings its own complexities and it’s still hard to find a universally satisfying solution.
