Joey Logano has called criticism of his run to a third NASCAR Cup championship as “bull****” after defeating Penske Ford team-mate Ryan Blaney in last weekend’s Phoenix title decider.
Logano’s average finish in 2024 was 17.1, surpassing the previous record as the worst ever for a Cup champion set by Blaney last year with an average finish of 14.1.
The champion in 2018 and 2022, Logano faced elimination from the 2024 playoffs after the Charlotte Roval round that concluded the Round of 12, but was reinstated following the disqualification for Alex Bowman’s Hendrick Chevrolet being underweight.
Having secured passage to the playoffs with a single victory during the regular season at Nashville, Logano won when it mattered while the title favourites failed to do so.
He followed victory in the opening playoff Round of 16 race at Atlanta with another in the first Round of 8 contest at Las Vegas, before holding off the fast-closing Blaney in the Phoenix finale on Sunday.
Logano raced within the rules of this format presented to him and in his mind, that’s no different than any other major sporting championship in America.
“The only reason why they don’t say this about other sports is because they didn’t change the playoff system,” said Logano, referencing the 2014 decision to cut the number of championship contenders after every three races.
“But the playoff system in other sports is not much different than what this is.
“You can have a great regular season, it seeds you better for the playoffs. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to go all the way to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup Finals or the NBA Finals.
“It doesn’t matter; it might help you [but it might not]. It’s the same way in NASCAR; the way we have the rules now, is that you set yourself up much better.”
Logano also noted how there were drivers such as fellow Championship 4 contender Tyler Reddick (23XI Toyota) and Hendrick’s Kyle Larson, eliminated in the Round of 8, who entered the playoffs with far more bonus points than him.
“They have the same opportunity to go out there and win and move on to the next round,” said Logano.
“So for someone to say this isn’t real, it’s a bunch of bull**** in my opinion. That’s wrong.
“This is something that everyone knows the rules when the season starts. We figured out how to do it the best and figured out how to win. It’s what our team has been able to do for the last three years.”
NASCAR remains an outlier in motorsport for using a playoff format to determine its champion, although Australian Supercars will be introducing a similar knockout-style system in 2025.
The Cup Series first adopted a playoff system, then known as the Chase for the Cup, in 2004.
Logano added that critics should “accept what the times are” and launched a defence of the playoffs.
“I don’t know if you have a lot of the moments that we have today without the playoff system,” he said.
“Do you want to see the championship crown with three races to go? Because that’s what used to happen. That’s pretty boring.
“You’ve got do-or-die moments. You’ve got the pressure. You’ve got all these things going on the last 10 weeks. You have guys trying to get into the playoffs.
“You have that storyline. How many storylines could we make? It’s amazing. For people to complain, it makes me mad. It makes me frustrated to hear that.”
Logano also pointed how scouring over hypothetical points is pointless, because the races would have played out completely differently in such a format.
