Joey Logano had a thick slice of luck allowing him to make the playoffs, but the Penske No. 22 is hopeful of their chances to go all the way. Alex Bowman placed 18th and won stage 2, which guaranteed him enough points to qualify, but post-race inspection found him too light, and he was disqualified. Amidst this dramatic turn of events, Logano found himself bumped up from 9th in the driver standings to 8th after the disqualification of Bowman and booked his spot in the round of 8.

The 2018 and 2022 NASCAR Cup series champion finds himself looking from the outside in going into Las Vegas. Currently, Joey Logano is 11 points behind the cut-line and will look to make his championship 4 experience count going into the business end of the season. Despite not being the favorite, the No. 22 driver feels optimistic about Team Penske’s chances at Las Vegas.

Joey Logano is as confident as ever heading into Las Vegas

Fortune often works in mysterious ways, and Joey Logano is seizing every ounce of it as fuel for his playoff push. This past Sunday at the ROVAL, he drove his No. 22 Ford to a solid eighth-place finish, racking up 18 crucial stage points for a total of 47 on the day. With this high-stakes performance, Logano showed just how determined he is to secure a spot in the championship showdown in Phoenix on November 10.

While speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR radio, Joey Logano sounded confident going into the Vegas weekend and said, “Obviously we’re gonna have to be really solid. We’re coming in as the least amount of playoff points. Mulligans are gone, not that we had any in the last round either. We’ll do the best we can, I feel good about Vegas. You know, Kansas was one of the tracks that we’ve been struggling at for a long time, and Kansas and Vegas have a lot of similarities, and Kansas was really good for us. We almost won the first stage, qualified up front, had speed in our cars.”

Joey Logano has held the pole position in two of his last three races at Vegas but didn’t manage to win either of them, finishing 9th earlier this year and 36th in 2023. However, the struggles seem to be behind him, as he is taking inspiration from Penske’s recent form.

During the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas this season, all three Team Penske drivers got points in stage 1, with Logano finishing 2nd, Ryan Blaney 3rd, and Austin Cindric in 10th. The veteran also isn’t wrong about Kansas being similar to Vegas, as both of them are 1.5-mile-long intermediate tracks, which sees Logano hopeful of a Kansas repeat in Vegas.

Further illustrating Ford’s underdog status, the Team Penske driver added, “So, when you look at Vegas I feel pretty optimistic about what we can do there. You know Miami, yep, I feel okay about that too, and Martinsville’s been good too. I think we have as good a chance as anybody to win one of those three races or even score a ton of points and put ourselves in position. I think it’d be a heck of a story. We may be the underdogs by the stats, but I still feel pretty good about it right now. You know we’re kind of back in the game here, and I think it’s kind of a breath of fresh air, and off we go.”

Joey Logano is never one to back down from a challenge, and that is exactly what he views the remainder of the playoffs as. He is well aware of Penske’s underdog status and is using it as a motivator to prove the NASCAR world wrong. Even if Team Penske might not be set up to win races, they certainly have been able to score points, as we saw with Cindric, Logano, and Blaney all getting stage points in both stages 1 and 2 at the Charlotte ROVAL.

The remaining Fords rely on their impressive history in upcoming tracks

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The Las Vegas Motor Speedway will host the next act of the drama, which is the NASCAR playoffs round of 8. The main character for Vegas will be Joey Logano, as the Penske driver has finished outside the top 15 at Vegas on just three occasions in 22 races. This includes 3 wins and 13 top-10 finishes. His teammate Ryan Blaney also has ten top-10 finishes in his 16 races at Las Vegas.

Blaney almost saw his title hopes dashed after a post-race disqualification at Vegas last season as NASCAR deemed the left-front damper on the No. 12 car did not meet the overall specified length. However, after an internal investigation, this disqualification was later rescinded, and Blaney placed sixth at Vegas, going on to win the 2023 Cup Series Championship.

However, his teammate, Logano, usually enjoys trips to Vegas, but he did not have the most enjoyable trip last time around. Logano was eliminated from the playoffs in the round of 16 before the Vegas race in what was a disappointing title defense. Logano is back in Vegas in 2024 with a playoff spot on the line and looks to make it count as he said, “I’m here to win a race, so if you want to know what the most fun thing to do there is there’s a place inside the racetrack called Victory Lane. That’s the best place to be in Vegas, so I’m gonna try to drive my car there and enjoy my time when I get there.”

In regards to Martinsville, Logano has finished in the top 10 in each of his last ten races at the track, with his last win coming in 2018 during his maiden championship run. Homestead, Miami, has seen mixed results from Logano, with his last win there also coming in 2018. Despite an 18th-place finish in 2022, he got stage points in stages 1 and 2 in. He placed 8th in 2023 and got stage points in stages 1 and 2.

Mixed fortunes all around, but Logano’s mindset is clear. He wants Roger Penske to win another championship and feels like his team can do so. Do you think Team Penske can pull off a back-to-back miracle?