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Joey Logano won Cup titles in 2018, 2022 and 2024, and fans had started calling him “even year Logano.” In 2026, it looked like the pattern might hold for a while. Then his season “got flipped upside down.”
Asked about the end of the even-year run in a video posted by RACER’s Kelly Crandall, the Team Penske driver joked about the label.
“I mean, yeah, obviously we’re bummed out about it. I don’t know what even year Logano was supposed to mean,” Logano said.
https://x.com/KellyCrandall/status/2120226276938289203
Reminded of his summer hot streak, Logano admitted he believed it too.
“Oh yeah, and it looked like it was gonna happen for a minute and then our season got flipped upside down.”
From 20th to a Title Contender
Logano was 20th in points at the halfway mark of the season. Three short-track wins in the summer got him into the Chase as the ninth seed, and he ran in the top 10 in six of the first seven Chase races.
“On one hand, there’s something to be proud of because the regular season was so bad, and we got ourselves to where we were true championship contenders for the majority of the Chase,” he said.
“And on the other hand, your greed will set in, and you’ll be like, dang it, you think about what could have been, right?”
Talladega Flip
The turning point came at Talladega, the eighth race of the Chase. Running fourth on Lap 183, Logano got loose after a push from Carson Hocevar, then contact from Chase Briscoe sent his No. 22 Ford airborne and onto its roof in a 15-car crash. He climbed out on his own.
Logano went into Talladega 44 points behind Kyle Larson and left 100 back after finishing 34th while Larson won.
“We were on the edge of making it, like finishing seventh, you’d probably be like, man, we would take that and get the heck out of here,” Logano said. “But when you find yourself, you know, at one point being, you know, 30, 20-something, 30 points out of it, and you think of Talladega, if we just finished it, we’d be right there within 10 points or so of the lead, it’s hard for greed not to get in the way and think, gosh, like we were so close to doing it.”
‘You Move On and Go Try Again’
Two pit-stop problems at Martinsville left him 18th and ended his title chances. He finished seventh in the final standings, 115 points behind Larson.
“It is what it is, can’t change it now,” Logano said. “You move on and go try again.”
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