“You Think That’s Interesting?!”: Joey Logano Calls Out NASCAR’s Newfound Superspeedway Flaw

Firing your engines at dizzying speeds is no longer an option in NASCAR. Especially on superspeedways, where passing has become more difficult in the Next Gen car. Drivers focus on maintaining track position instead and ration their fuel tanks as much as possible. This problem played out in Talladega, echoing similar events from this year’s Daytona 500.

NASCAR legend, Richard Petty, reacted aggressively to this dismal situation. The 200-time Cup winner strongly opposed parity racing. However, Team Penske’s Joey Logano chooses a milder approach. He finds this situation simply boring, as his hands itch to do wonders with the wheel again.

Joey Logano ridicules NASCAR’s passing flaw

Starting 7th place at the GEICO 500 race, Joey Logano was faring well. In line with the herd mentality, he paced out his speed, strategizing pit stops and saving fuel. However, a desire to throttle up overcame him on lap 46, when he was penalized for speeding on pit road. Then despite winning Stage 2, the No. 22 driver fell behind due to a few wrecks.

Finishing 19th, Joey Logano clocked in another winless venture, as his last Cup triumph came in March last year. Yet he is meticulously analyzing all his races. On a recent episode of Sirius XM NASCAR, Logano dissected the Talladega fiasco.

He narrowed down NASCAR’s new flaw that played out in this race: lack of passing. “You gotta figure out how to make cars be able to make moves again…It depends on what you want to see as a fan. If you like three-wide racing, where the cars are stagnant three-wide, or two-wide in this case at the end of the race…they’re just stagnant there, no one’s making any moves.”

Then Logano quipped sarcastically: “You think that’s interesting? Okay, good. I don’t think so at all.”

Then Joey Logano compared his ideal scenario with the grim reality. “I like to have shuffling in a field…When a car makes a move, someone goes with him or doesn’t go with him…This is just like, I follow the car in front of me…You know, like I didn’t make a difference. The best thing I could have done was nothing. Like, the power of nothing was in play.”

Logano crossed his fingers with a wish: “I wanna make some stuff happen, man. I wanna make a big move, I wanna do something that makes a difference…But the best thing you can do is save fuel and pit pass.” He added: “I just wanna have the ability to move back and forth in the field and do something afterward. As a race car driver, that’s what you want.”

As Logano and others clamor for greater drama on the race track, an interesting statistic counters them. In 2023, an analysis revealed that the Next Gen car is actually not as debilitating as experienced.

More passes were recorded in the new car

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Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, nano-materials researcher and motorsport writer, offered insights into the Next Gen car last year. An analysis of race-winner starting positions from 2020-23 revealed that the car acts differently on tracks. Starting near the front is less important at tracks less than 1 mile, but more so at tracks between a mile and a mile-and-a-half.

Additionally, the 1,554 passes in 2022 (Next Gen’s inaugural year) were the most since NASCAR started recording passing data. Also, nine 2022 races scripted history for green flag passing for the lead. Besides the Next Gen car’s contribution, new superspeedways also caused massive lead changes.

Hence, the debate regarding passing with the Next Gen car is yet to fully climax, as we keep unearthing new details every day.