Joey Logano says his 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season “got flipped upside down” at Talladega, ending his run of even-year titles.
Logano won Cup titles in 2018, 2022 and 2024, and fans started calling it “even year Logano.” He had some fun with it.
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“I mean, yeah, obviously we’re bummed out about it. I don’t know what even year Logano was supposed to mean, like we made the Championship 4, was I supposed to finish fourth or better?” Logano said, in a clip shared by Kelly Crandall of RACER.
The Team Penske driver had put himself in position for a fourth title this year.
Logano was 20th in the standings at the halfway point of the season. Short-track wins at North Wilkesboro and Richmond pushed him into the Chase as the ninth seed, and he added a third at Bristol in the Chase.
“Oh yeah, and it looked like it was gonna happen for a minute and then our season got flipped upside down,” Logano said.
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He called the first six or seven Chase races “pretty solid.” The end was a different story.
“And like the last three, it just didn’t go right at the end, and we fell out of contention,” he said.
The Talladega Flip Changed Everything
The biggest blow came at Talladega. Logano’s No. 22 Ford flipped onto its roof on Lap 183 in a 15-car crash, and he climbed out under his own power.
He was 44 points behind Kyle Larson going into that race and left 100 points back after finishing 34th. Larson won at Talladega.
Logano Feels Two Ways About His Season
Logano said he feels two ways about the season.
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“On one hand, there’s something to be proud of because the regular season was so bad, and we got ourselves to where we were true championship contenders for the majority of the Chase. And on the other hand, your greed will set in, and you’ll be like, dang it, you think about what could have been, right?” he said.
He kept coming back to Talladega.
“But when you find yourself at one point being 20-something, 30 points out of it, and you think of Talladega, if we just finished it, we’d be right there within 10 points or so of the lead, it’s hard for greed not to get in the way and think, gosh, like we were so close to doing it,” Logano said.
Logano was eliminated at Martinsville after two pit-stop problems left him 18th. He had called the regular season one of the worst of his career before a summer surge turned it around.
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He did not dwell on it, though. “It is what it is, can’t change it now. You move on and go try again,” Logano said. He will chase a fourth Cup title in 2027 with Team Penske, one of the most successful organizations in motorsports.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
