What can a stellar driver achieve in twelve years? If you are Joey Logano, you have achieved a mixed fanbase of haters and die-hard defenders. Since joining the No. 22 Team Penske Ford in 2013, Logano has clinched 34 of his 36 Cup Series victories and three championships. These laurels have ensured a first-ballot NASCAR Hall of Fame entry for Logano. Yet they hide the struggles that Logano had to face before 2013.

Before joining Penske, Joey Logano drove under Joe Gibbs’ umbrella. He made his Cup Series debut at the tender age of 18 in 2008 and failed to make a splash in the ensuing four years. Although the pressure of failure hung over him, Logano admitted that he learned a valuable lesson. One that enabled him to be the talented driver he is today.

Joey Logano reveals strained history with Joe Gibbs

The cycle of failure, trial, and redemption has played out several times in the NASCAR Cup Series. For example, Kyle Larson was fired from Chip Ganassi Racing in 2020 for a controversial action. He hit a low that year, but Hendrick Motorsports accepted him despite his struggles. The next year, Larson won ten races and the Cup Series title. Similarly, Joey Logano endured a rough patch with Joe Gibbs Racing. He was the rushed replacement for Tony Stewart in 2008. ‘Smoke’ and ‘Sliced Bread’ clearly were not the best match as Logano could only clinch two wins in his first 147 Cup Series starts.

JGR first signed Joey Logano as a development driver in 2005. Five wins and a 2007 championship followed in the K&N Pro Series. In a recent ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour’ episode, Logano said how that success dazzled him: “When I started at Gibbs, I’m 15 years old… You grow up in this environment in the limelight. At that point, I never lost – I just jumped in cars and won. I didn’t have to work at it… There was a lot of hype and I believed the hype. Which was the worst thing for me at the time.” Logano added how taking things for granted made it tough for him. “I had to go through those years of struggle… I had to go through there and learn my lessons the hard way. I had to do it in front of everybody.”

Early in his career, Logano was touted as the best thing since ‘sliced bread,’ thus the nickname. At the age of 7, he won the Eastern Grand National Championship in the Junior Stock Car Division in 1997 and then a Junior Honda Division Championship in 1998. Many more junior championships and trophies followed, and it seemed like the kid could not lose. It’s no surprise that it got to his head. Entering JGR as a teenager only made that task more daunting.

Logano holds the record for the youngest Xfinity Race winner at just 18 years of age and the youngest Cup race winner at 19. However, aside from winning races himself, racing as a teenager also introduced Joey Logano to the various factors involved in being a race-winning team. “I learned also what we needed to do as a race team to be successful. I learned myself… but what do I need for people around me? You don’t know that until you go through it.”

Despite winning from the pole in Kentucky on just his third Xfinity start, Logano confessed that his time with Joe Gibbs did not work. “It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work. We got to the point where we had to break ties.” On September 4, 2012, JGR announced it would replace a 22-year-old Logano with 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth. The team had already tried to replace Logano a year earlier with Carl Edwards.

Yet eventually, Joey Logano gave Joe Gibbs cause for regret in the following years.

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He made the most of his second chance

Joey Logano won two races in four seasons and never finished higher than 16th in the Cup Series standings under JGR. However, his inflamed fallout at JGR may have fueled his success in subsequent years. 2012 Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski recommended Logano to Roger Penske. Keselowski was convinced that the 22-year-old would shine with just a change in scenery. That turned out to be true – last year, Logano clinched his third Cup Series title under extraordinary circumstances. Even though he officially bowed out of the Round of 8, Logano catapulted back into the playoffs miraculously due to Alex Bowman’s post-race penalty.

Despite the criticism about the playoffs, Joey Logano and his team made the best out of it. They won two playoff races, beating the 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney to grab the 2024 title. Logano reflected on how entering Team Penske was the best decision. “When I had the opportunity to walk into the doors of Team Penske, that was my opportunity to do it all a second time. Like anybody else, when you do something a second time, you’re going to do better. You have all these thoughts like I need to treat people this way, I need to do races this way, I need to approach controversy this way… I have an idea of all the mistakes that I had made and I know how to do it better now.”

Logano’s career highlights the impact of getting a fresh start. With success getting to his head and possibly strained relationships at JGR, succeeding there was a long shot, to say the least. However, after joining Team Penske, it felt like the perfect fit for Logano. He had reflected on his past at JGR and just wanted to be a winning race car driver. This mentality has got him to three Cup Series Championships so far, and who knows how many more to come!

While JGR might lament the decision to let go of Logano, it never looked like their ideologies lined up in the first place. At Penske, Logano feels like home, and to be honest, we can’t imagine him on any other team.