Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse
for Team Penske, is the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion and a
two-time winner of the Clash. As the season prepares to start this
weekend at Bowman Gray Stadium, Logano spent a few minutes chatting with
media about what lies ahead.
JOEY LOGANO, Driver, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
HOW HAS YOUR OFFSEASON BEEN? “The offseason has been great, obviously.
Anytime you leave the season as the winner, the offseason becomes a lot
more enjoyable and also a lot busier at the same time, where a lot of
opportunities have come my way and you don’t want to waste those. You
don’t want to waste any opportunity that comes your way because you
have a championship under your belt. A lot of great things and a lot of
fun things. I got to spend some time with the family, which is great and
get prepared for the season. The facts are the championship was awesome
and we enjoyed it, but it’s over. If you look at the scoreboard right
now, everybody has zero. We’ll have an opportunity to go up to Bowman
Gray and have a little bit of fun and knock the rust off and just go
through the motions and try to win a race up there with nothing to lose
and then, obviously, the biggest race coming up here in the Great
American Race, the Daytona 500.”
NASCAR SAID THEY WON’T CHANGE THE CHAMPIONSHIP FORMAT. DID YOU EXPECT
ANY CHANGES AND DO YOU FEEL THERE SHOULD BE? “I personally don’t
expect changes and did not expect changes only because I feel like our
playoff system is very entertaining and it also takes a lot to get
through those 10 races to win the championship. I know it’s hard to
compare to other sports because we’re a unique sport and we’re our
own, but there is comparisons that you can draw to the NBA, the NFL,
plenty of others as well and their playoff systems – the regular
seasons they have versus the playoff runs that they have. Their seasons
are long as well and ours is too and you can go up and down throughout
all that, but when the playoffs start a lot of times you see teams that
fire up and we’ve been one of those teams, thankfully, and it’s
worked out for us through time. I don’t think that means you have to
change the playoff system. I think if you look at the Xfinity Series and
the Truck Series, which that’s the same playoff system with just minor
tweaks because of the fuel size, it’s really fun to watch as a race
fan. Myself as a fan, not as a competitor, without a horse in the race
in those races I find myself glued to the TV watching the races.
Personally, and everyone has their own opinion and everyone is entitled
to their opinion, but I like it.”
DID YOU CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAID AFTER YOU WON THE TITLE LAST YEAR? “To
be honest with you, I can’t hear well because my trophies, they kind
of echo around me, so I can’t hear that. It’s kind of crazy
(laughing).”
WHAT DO YOU MAKE ABOUT MOVING THE CLASH AROUND? “I think we should. I
think it always draw up a little bit more excitement and people talk
about it more when it’s something new. ‘What are we gonna see at
Bowman Gray? I don’t know.’ When we went to L.A. the first time,
remember all the talk of what that race was gonna be like and no one had
a clue? It draws up a lot of hype, which is good, and you’re also
bringing it to the race fan. I’ve said this many times before, but it
is hard to ask a family of any size to travel a long distance to go to a
sporting event. It’s hard to do that, whether you have young kids or
older kids, getting hotel rooms, getting the tickets, it becomes
expensive. These days, it’s hard to do that, so I think moving our
races around, going to our race fans is great. When you look at what
Winston-Salem is to our sport, and that whole region, we all see the
numbers and there are a lot of NASCAR fans there, a ton of them, and so
going to our race fans is kind of going back to grassroots up there, but
it’s also cool that we’re giving race fans that might not have been
able to go to other races an opportunity to see a race. Whether that’s
in Winston-Salem or in L.A. or name a city, I think moving it around is
cool because it gives people opportunity.”
HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU FLOWN INTO THE AIRPORT AT DAYTONA? “For about 17
years now.”
DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE THE FIRST TIME FLYING IN AND SEEING THE
TRACK ADJACENT TO THE AIRPORT? “It’s still cool. It never changes. I
always enjoy the first flight of the year because you get on and
everyone is exciting. You land right next to the race track and then you
drive into the tunnel. That experience of getting back in the tunnel is
like, ‘OK, a new year, here we go.’ You get settled back in. You get
on the racetrack for the first time. That magic to me has never left.
It’s always been there. It is more fun now to do that with your kids.
My oldest being seven, he gets excited when he sees the racetrack now.
He’s like, ‘Oh, it’s right there,’ and you’re landing in the
plane and he’s talking about it. That’s cool and there’s a little
extra special moment there for sure.”
WHAT OPPORTUNITIES DID YOU GET DURING THE OFFSEASON? “I think
there’s a lot of opportunities to take advantage of because the
spotlight is on you. I think that’s what I mean when I say that,
whether that’s with your partners, the sponsors that we have. How do
we leverage what we have with the opportunity we have right now to make
a difference? The opportunity to promote our sport, to grow. The
opportunity for growth is right now and that will diminish as the season
goes along and there are other storylines, but especially right after
the season last year until Christmas, it was wide-open because we had
opportunities to grow every area of our business in our industry, so,
for me, that’s where I felt like the opportunity really was ahead of
us – more so than doing cool stuff. I don’t need to go do cool
stuff. Honestly, what I want to do is go home with my family and ride my
four-wheeler. That’s really what I want to do, so I don’t need to go
on different things, but taking advantage of the opportunities that come
from the championship to grow our industry is most important as well.”
DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE OVER WHERE THE CLASH WOULD BE? IN L.A. IT WAS
IN A HUGE STADIUM AND THIS YEAR IT’S A HISTORIC SHORT TRACK. DO YOU
WANT TO BE AT THOSE LOCAL TRACKS THAT COULD USE A BOOST OR BE IN THE
CITIES, IF POSSIBLE? “You’re asking a driver. I’m not NASCAR by
any means. I don’t make the decisions. I don’t see the economics
behind the decision and why they do it, so my opinion is purely based
off of what I think is cool. I thought what we did in L.A., especially
the first year with how many new fans there was there, was one of the
largest wins our sport has ever seen that I’ve been a part of. I
thought that was amazing and that was going to a whole new market and
racing downtown basically, like we were really close to it at least. I
thought that was huge. I would love to see our sport continue to do
things like that because it just feels big. When we went to the
Coliseum, it felt like a big event. It felt big. I’m not saying Bowman
Gray doesn’t feel big, but it feels like we’re going to our
grassroots, which is also cool in its own way, but different. It’s
definitely a lot different than what L.A. is, so, personally, I’d like
to see us race in the cities. That’s where our sport has a little bit
more of a challenge because it’s hard to put a one-mile or two-mile
racetrack in a city. It’s really hard to do that, so if we have the
opportunity to be like a baseball team or a basketball team, a hockey
team, and NFL team, where their stadiums are where the people are and
where people can walk to it, you get a whole new demographic, so I think
those type of things are really what I think is cool. I can’t make the
decisions. There’s a lot more into what Joey Logano thinks is cool,
but that’s what I do think.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE TEST AT ROCKINGHAM YESTERDAY. DID YOU SEE ANY
OF IT AND IS IT SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE TO SEE THE CUP SERIES GO BACK TO?
“Let’s see how it goes first. Let’s not pull the trigger already,
but let’s watch those races. We’re all gonna be glued to our TV on
Easter to watch those races, so we’ll wait and see. I know Rockingham
in the past, before they repaved it, was one of the most awesome
racetracks ever. I had so much fun going around that racetrack,
especially the tire wear and all that. The repave definitely changed the
characteristic of the racetrack in so many ways, so I’d like to watch
the races and see how it goes before I say that, but I do think it’s
cool to see these tracks get brought back to life from the state they
were in. We’re obviously talking about Rockingham, but also North
Wilkesboro, a track that was dead and now it’s brought back to life.
It’s pretty cool to see that type of stuff.”
DO YOU FEEL ADDING WORLD CLASS DRIVERS HELPS GROW THE SPORT? “Yeah, it
does. It brings a different fan demographic to what we do. In a way, I
don’t say it legitimizes what we do in any way because I think what we
do, our talent pool that we have as far as drivers, they’re absolutely
incredible, but I do think you have fans that come along with some of
these drivers, whether that’s from Indy Car or F1 or from the Supercar
Series in Australia. We’ve seen that and it brings those fans that may
not watch NASCAR racing and say, ‘Well, I’m gonna watch because this
guy is in there. I want to see how he does against the NASCAR guys.’
That’s cool. That’s good, so it definitely grows the sport.”
IS THERE SOMEONE YOU’D LIKE TO SEE OR RACE AGAINST? “No. Bring them
on. I don’t care. I don’t know if I’ve ever really thought about
that. I’m pretty focused on just myself when it comes to racing, so
whoever shows up we’ll have to figure out how to beat them. Anybody is
welcome. We’ve kind of proven that, especially this year with the
rules, so I’d say we’re open doors for people that want to try.”
HOW QUICKLY DO YOU START THINKING ABOUT FOUR CHAMPIONSHIPS NOW?
“Pretty immediate that you think about it. On one hand, I think the
three championships are great. On the other hand, I think we lost four
of them that we should have won, so those are the ones that are always
in the back of my mind. Probably not until I’m done racing will I be
content with what I have because I’m not done yet. I’m still only
34, so I’ve got a lot of years ahead of me to win more championships
and races, so as great as it is, like I always say, the first 20 minutes
is amazing because you’re celebrating with your team and your family,
and then every day it becomes a little less exciting and more thoughts
into ‘we’ve got to do it again,’ especially after Christmas, like
I said, it’s over.’”
WHEN YOU GO TO BOWMAN GRAY STADIUM, HOW MUCH FREER DO YOU FEEL TO RACE
FOR THE FUN OF IT? “I don’t know if it’s very free, it’s pretty
confined in there. It’s pretty tight racing (laughing). You’re not
gonna be able to open her up too much, but the pressure feels a lot
different when you go there, only because there’s nothing to lose,
really per se and everything to win. There’s a trophy to win and a lot
of really cool factors to be the first to win at a racetrack, and it’s
nice to get a little momentum built and all those type of things. There
are a lot of reasons to want to go race, but if something was to happen,
it’s not the end of the world. Would I be upset if you turn on TV and
I get dumped are you gonna see Joey Logano pissed off? Absolutely,
because I want to win, but it doesn’t affect the rest of our season,
and I think all of the drivers probably feel similar, I would assume. If
you win, awesome. If you don’t win, yeah, you might be mad for a few
hours, but you’re gonna get over it and start thinking about
Daytona.”
WHERE IS THAT LINE THEN IN A RACE LIKE THIS? “I think there’s gonna
be bumping and banging, there’s no doubt. It’s such a tight facility
that you’re gonna be bumping and banging, but I would also say things
that happen at this racetrack will carry into the regular season, and so
it doesn’t mean you throw all caution to the wind and you don’t care
about competitors, you don’t care about the future, you don’t care
about all that stuff. I always say it’s a self policing sport, so I
don’t think it’s one of those racetracks where you’re gonna want
to make a bunch of enemies, but at the same time, I don’t know if
there are gonna be many passes made without contact. I think there’s
kind of what’s acceptable and what’s not, and I think everyone kind
of knows what that is.”
THAT MADE ME THINK OF THE TY GIBBS INCIDENT FROM LAST YEAR. DID ANYTHING
EVER COME OF THAT? HOW DID YOU RACE EACH OTHER THE REST OF THE YEAR?
“It’s obviously something that’s always in the back of your mind.
It’s a thought that goes through your mind every time you see that car
and that’s just racing. It’s what our sport is. Everyone is gonna
keep a score sheet on each other and that’s just what it’s like, but
I felt like that was too far. If you want to know where the line is,
that was too far. He didn’t even win the race, either, so it wasn’t
smart on his part, either.”
YOU MENTIONED AT CHAMPIONSHIP MEDIA DAY THAT IF YOU WON THE THIRD TITLE
YOU WERE GOING TO MENTION THAT TO TONY STEWART THAT YOU WERE BOTH
THREE-TIME CHAMPIONS. DID YOU GET A CHANCE TO LET HIM KNOW? “I
haven’t got to talk to him. I have not (laughing).”
I’M SURE YOU’RE STILL LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. “I would look forward
to that, absolutely (laughing).”