Joey Logano Unsurprisingly Joins Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch in an Unpleasant Piece of NASCAR History Despite “Magical Job”

It is not often you see a reigning NASCAR champion get eliminated in the season early on. It was Kyle Busch a few years back, and it was Tony Stewart before then. Now, in 2023, Joey Logano has gotten the red card. The Team Penske driver had gotten into the playoffs of the current season with the hopes of becoming the first driver to achieve a repeat championship since Jimmie Johnson. But the night at Bristol lay resting flowers to those thoughts. Struggling to find his pace throughout the race, he went a lap down before a crash set off by Corey LaJoie ended his race at P34.

Appearing on the ‘Motorsports on NBC’ show, NASCAR veteran Jeff ‘The Mayor’ Burton, revealed his thoughts on the season Team Penske’s No. 22 team had and their early elimination.

NBC Reporter draws parallel between Joey Logano and former champions questioning his early exit

In 2020, Kyle Busch exited the contest in a fashion similar to Joey, after winning the championship in 2019. When he left the Charlotte Motor Speedway that year after finishing at P30, he became the first champion in the ‘Championship 4’ age to be eliminated prior to the round of 8. Tony Stewart too had faced tunes of the same notes when he crashed out of contention in 2006 after winning the 2005 championship. But Joey Logano has done both of them better at Bristol. His elimination in the round of 16 is probably the worst performance by a defending champion in the new era of the Cup Series.

Reflecting on the parallelism the driver shared with other such champions, NBC reporter Nate Ryan posed a question to Jeff Burton that went, “We’ve seen it before. We’ve seen defending Champions miss the playoffs the next year. (…) What’s your take on Logano? I mean, he gets eliminated by a crash. If he’s not in that crash, maybe he makes it. But again kind of similar to Harvick. This was a guy who won a race this year but wasn’t really of that Championship caliber all season long.”

The question touched upon the inconsistency that Joey and his crew have been showing all season. His first and only win of the season came back when he raced at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. From there he’d gone on to finish outside the top 25,  a staggering 7 times. Jeff Burton must have been well aware of these stats as he agreed with his host and provided his take on the driver and his crew.

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Jeff Burton shows a soft corner for the No. 22 team despite their ‘lack of speed’

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Despite the downplay of the poor finishes, it should be noted that Joey did manage to get in some spectacular finishes all season. While his car’s on-track performance might not have warranted that, what matters is the points on the board. To that extent, the Team Penske team had been doing well. Talking about how they managed to finish in great positions despite starting from the back of the grid, Jeff said, “What they’ve done a magical job of is clawing out finishes. They finished way better than they deserved from a speed standpoint. And that’s the ultimate compliment you can give the driver and a crew chief, to be honest with you.”

Balancing out a factor that they know is a negative for them through drawing strategies that will put them ahead is not every team’s cup of tea. That is what the No. 22 team had done so effectively through the year. Explaining that the lack of speed had ultimately cost them the downfall, Jeff continued, “At the end of the day what they haven’t had on a consistent basis is the speed. So when you teeter on that edge of not having enough speed, when things don’t go well, you can’t recover. And, you know, speed doesn’t cure everything but it damn sure helps. (…) And so, they’ve done all the little things really well. But the big thing is the lack of speed.”

Acknowledging the hard work the team must have put into the season, Jeff went on to say that they just weren’t able to bring more this year. Along with Joey Logano, 3 other drivers faced elimination at Bristol. All that is left for the champion to do now is go through the rest of the races with grace and wait for next season. We will next be watching him behind the wheel of his Mustang at the Texas Motor Speedway!

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