{"id":111044,"date":"2025-08-01T19:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/111044\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T19:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:29:14","slug":"confidence-high-for-another-playoff-run-for-reigning-cup-champ-joey-logano-despite-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/111044\/","title":{"rendered":"Confidence high for another playoff run for reigning Cup champ Joey Logano despite results"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano has one top-10 finish in the last eight races, but he and crew chief Paul Wolfe see progress by the team that could lead to another title run.<\/p>\n

Logano claimed a playoff spot with his victory in Texas in early May<\/a>. But since placing fourth at Nashville in early June, Logano has not finished better than ninth. He\u2019ll look to change that Sunday at Iowa Speedway (coverage begins at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I sat down with Joey a couple of weeks ago and just kind of laid out the playoff rounds and what tracks are where, obviously it\u2019s a little different again this year, I told him I feel pretty good, there\u2019s a pretty clear path, \u201dWolfe told NBC Sports ahead of last weekend\u2019s race at Indianapolis. \u201c \u2026 There\u2019s no reason if we do our jobs that we can\u2019t be in Phoenix again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Syndication:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney looks to repeat his win in last year\u2019s inaugural Cup race at Iowa.<\/p>\n

After winning only once in the regular season last year, Logano won three playoff races on the way to his third Cup title. Fifteen of his 37 career Cup wins \u2014 40.5% \u2014 have come in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

While Logano finished 14th at Dover and 32nd at Indianapolis the past two weeks, both races showed promise for the team, Logano said this week on \u201cThe Morning Drive\u201d on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cDover has notoriously been our worst racetrack, and we were pretty good there,\u201d he said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. \u201cLike we weren\u2019t great, we weren\u2019t going to go up there and win the race, but we can run the top six to 10. That\u2019s way better than last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Indy, we had better speed than we had last year and we were positioned to win that race if we can just keep air in the tire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe\u2019s strategy had Logano as the lead car that had made its final pit stop before a right rear went down 25 laps from the scheduled finish. Logano\u2019s race was made worse when he was collected in a crash on the first of two overtime restarts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is some momentum behind the 22 right now, behind Team Penske, that there\u2019s some good things going,\u201d Logano said this week on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. \u201cI mean, if I look at Indy alone, (teammate Austin Cindric) was probably the best car, probably the car that could have won the race. Had a flat tire, too. Then we were next in line. I feel like that\u2019s a good thing. We\u2019re not that far off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe said a tire test last week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway went well for the No. 22 team. New Hampshire will host the opening race of the second round of the playoffs in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel confident in where we\u2019re at,\u201d Wolfe said ahead of Indy. \u201cWe had a great two days up in New Hampshire, which was encouraging. I think the driver probably has some pretty good confidence after the test as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney won last year\u2019s inaugural Cup race at Iowa.<\/p>\n

That Logano did the Goodyear tire test at New Hampshire was a part of Wolfe\u2019s strategy to make a run at back-to-back Cup titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we looked at the testing schedule in the offseason, all the Ford teams divvy them up and then we divvy them up amongst our company,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cSo we\u2019re like where do we want to go, what\u2019s going to be most productive for us?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s different theories and approaches. Do you go test at the track that is your weaker track, or do you go somewhere that is your strength and really make it better and know that you have a legit chance to win that race?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was kind of the approach I took, was, hey, we know (New Hampshire) is a really good track for us, it is a short track, obviously, Phoenix, the final race, is a short track, let\u2019s take that one and make that one even a step better than what we\u2019ve been and that was our approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe admitted he had to convince Logano that it would be best to test at New Hampshire than do a tire test elsewhere. Teammate Ryan Blaney took part in a tire test at Charlotte and Cindric did the tire test at Iowa earlier this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoey, at first, when we discussed it, (he was saying) we\u2019re not very good on intermediates, should we take the Charlotte test?\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cI said let (Blaney) have that, he\u2019s typically our fastest car on the high-speed tracks. Maybe they can learn something there that helps us all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like if we\u2019re going to go somewhere and really dial in a setup, Joey\u2019s going to do it as good or better than any one of our drivers in our company. I feel like we\u2019ve shown that over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go to Phoenix for these championship races, us and (Blaney) are running the same setup because it works and we\u2019ve developed it throughout the year and testing and that\u2019s kind of what we did (at New Hampshire) and we feel good about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano has one top-10 finish in the last eight races, but he and crew…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":111045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-111044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114955168304954266","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}