Joey Logano just won at Richmond Raceway. It was his second win in four races. Three months ago, he was sitting 20th in the standings with finishes of 33rd, 37th, and 39th on his recent record. The people who had already written him off are now doing the math. And veteran NASCAR commentator Bob has a message for all of them.
“Every time I seem to count out Joey Logano, I know I’ve said before. It seems that he tends to become a player, and he certainly has become a player in the last couple months.” he gave the analysis via FOX, NASCAR on X.
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The thing is, Bob gets why people wrote him off. The logic was sound. Logano’s entire legacy is build NASCAR’s old elimination playoff format. Every few years, he would have a messy regular season, then flip a switch when it mattered. Three championships came from that exact approach. In 2024, his full-season average finish was 17.1. He still took the title.
NASCAR changed the format for 2026. Gone is the elimination system where one win could carry a driver through a round. The new 10-race Chase is a straight points race. Best cumulative score after 10 races wins. No lifelines, no shortcuts. Every bad finish stays on the board.
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That alone was supposed to be the end of the Joey Logano formula. Then there is the track problem. The Chase schedule is heavy on intermediate tracks, the 1.5-mile ovals where Toyota teams consistently have the edge over Team Penske. Bob addressed this directly.
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“That’s not Joey Logano’s strength. That’s not Penske’s strength. That’s Toyota’s strength.”
Through the first half of 2026, everything pointed that way. Joey Logano was buried. His average finish sat at 17.3. He was getting lapped by the conversation. It was then that the “Even Year Logano” came to race on track.
Here is the pattern that keeps biting people. In 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024, every even-numbered year, Logano has reached the Championship 4. Not always by dominating. By peaking at exactly the right time.
On July 19, he won at North Wilkesboro Speedway and snapped a 45-race winless streak. Then on August 15 at Richmond, he led 95 laps and beat Chase Briscoe to the line. That is three top-five finishes in the last four races. He has gone from 20th to 9th in the standings with two regular-season races still to go.
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The 2026 points structure also gives him another incentive. Race winners earn 55 points. Second place gets 35. That 20-point gap every single week adds up fast. Joey Logano does not need to grind out consistent top-fives across ten races. He just needs to keep finding victory lane.
“I’m not going to predict him to win it,” Bob said. “But anybody who counts him out and counts Paul Wolfe out, you do it, you know, kind of at your own expense”
He left it there. Anyone who has watched Joey Logano long enough knows exactly that the No. 22 team has found their mojo, just at the right time. And now everybody who had wrote him off will start to take notice.
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The post “Do It At Your Own Expense”- NASCAR Veteran Warns Racing Community Against Counting Out Joey Logano Despite Unfavorable Chase Demands appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
