“I’ve got thick skin. Bring it on,” said a determined Joey Logano after winning in Phoenix. The 2024 Cup Series championship has rung alarm bells across the NASCAR community like never before. Swathes of fans erupted in clear hostility at NASCAR’s playoff format and even Logano’s win. In person, they quietly sauntered out of the grandstands, deliberately deserting the audience section while Logano celebrated his third Bill France trophy.

However, our Team Penske star is not so easily shaken. Joey Logano has always been a vocal proponent of the playoffs – and this year he drummed up his opinion. The No. 22 team has excelled at mastering NASCAR’s elimination format – which Logano claimed Denny Hamlin also sanctioned once.

Joey Logano involves rival in raging controversy

Well, the Team Penske driver definitely whipped up a ton of questions. Under the current playoff format, inconsistent finishes across the 36-race season are of no consequence – but your performance in the 10-race playoffs is. Joey Logano barely got into the playoffs after a quintuple overtime Nashville victory and was 15h in points after the regular season. Then he pushed the buttons in the right places – like winning in Atlanta and taking advantage of Alex Bowman’s penalty by immediately winning a fuel mileage masterclass in Las Vegas. The latter bought him enough time to prepare for Phoenix. By the time he won Phoenix, he cracked NASCAR records in having the fewest top-tens and top-fives as a champion.

Despite fans throwing a volley of cannons at his glory, Joey Logano is adamant. In an interview with ‘The Teardown’ hosts, he even cited Denny Hamlin as a past supporter of the format. “Listen, we’ve had this playoff system for 10 years now…and now we’re complaining about it? Like, the first time we did it…everyone loved it, right? If I remember correctly, I’m 90% sure…I was in the meetings when all this was hashed out. You know, Denny Hamlin was one of the people in that room…I think this was his idea. He was definitely for it.” There is no love lost between the two. They have clashed multiple times since 2013 – like in 2019, a Martinsville collision translated into a physical scuffle.

Denny Hamlin is now a vocal opponent of the format – most recently, he quipped about why Kyle Larson could not crack the playoffs despite holding 6 race wins. Regardless of his rivals’ beliefs, Joey Logano still insisted on how Larson and other drivers got fair chances to prove their worth. And their failure to do so was exciting. “Can we tweak things? I’m sure. But gosh, it just makes incredible storylines all the way through. And everyone has the same opportunity…The advantage that the 5 had, the 45 had, going into the playoffs – what else could you want? They earned the advantage…if you don’t make it from that, like oh well.”

Citing an experience, Joey Logano did allow space for some speculation against the playoffs.

Logano’s past heartbreak

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Well, our controversial 2024 champion is not entirely in Team Playoffs. Joey Logano now ranks in an illustrious group that includes Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, David Pearson, and Richard Petty. All five of them have won at least three championships under the age of 35. Yet Logano’s path to this checkered resume was no less rocky. In 2020, the #22 driver had a far greater possibility of winning the championship. Besides 3 wins, he clinched 21 top-tens and 12 top-fives and had an average start of 6.42. In the championship 4 race in Phoenix, he led 125 laps. However, Chase Elliott snatched that lead with 43 laps left after slicing up the field from the rear. Logano says that loss was due to his faulty pace – one mistake that poured water on his championship hopes.

So Joey Logano admitted that was one time he thought the playoffs worked against him. “The only thing that you could look back and change…maybe a couple of races in the last round…In 2020, everything was going really well, looked like we were about to win the race. We put on a set of tires, this thing’s shaking, I can’t see where we’re going and I lose the championship. That’s when the 9 won. And we were ahead of him off pit road driving away from him…I still look at that championship as the one that got away…It sucks that it came down to one race and one set of tires. That hurts, that really stings – especially when you did everything right.”

However, Joey Logano is past that phase as he is now an indomitable clutch driver who rises to the occasion as and when required. If one team has mastered the playoffs, it is Team Penske. Do you think Team Penske will continue to dominate this decade?