Joey Logano came into the NASCAR Cup Series with massive expectations on his shoulders.
After earning the nickname “Sliced Bread” as a teenager, Logano was able to win his third race in what is now the O’Reilly Series, and was shotgunned into the seat of the No. 20 at Joe Gibbs Racing at just 18 years old. But his initial stint in the Cup Series sputtered out — after three years at JGR, Logano left due to inconsistent results.
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Speaking as a guest on the Racin’ With the Boys podcast, Logano opened up about his departure from JGR, and how hard it was when he finally found a level of competition he couldn’t just beat with his natural ability.
“All this hype kept following me all the way. I signed with Joe Gibbs Racing when I was 15 to go race there,” Logano said. “There was even a commercial NASCAR put out about me moving to the Cup level. It was just about me. So I believed all of it. And I finally got to the Cup level, which is the dogs, just the best of the best, and I got my butt kicked for three years straight. Lost my job, was out. Was 21 years old wondering, ‘Uh oh, this is all I ever did my whole life.’ I didn’t have a backup plan. All the eggs were in racing. There’s no other basket. Really by the grace of god the No. 22 car opened up.”
Logano explained that the hype that had been built up around his early success as a driver came back to bite him in his first Cup Series stint.
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“I’m like 13, 14 years old. I drank the Kool Aid. I believed it. A lot of lessons learned,” Logano said of the hype surrounding him as a teen. “When there’s enough people telling you that you’re great, eventually you’re going to start believing that. For me, my career was the youngest to do, about everything. I was always bumping my age just to get into the next league. I had a fake birth certificate for a little bit that allowed me to go racing before I got busted, but I raced above like where I should have been for a while.”
That natural talent helped put Logano in position to become a young sensation in the Cup Series, but it also set him up for failure when he finally was up against competition he couldn’t beat.
“I didn’t realize I sucked. I didn’t realize everybody was so good,” Logano said. “I didn’t know how to lose. I had never lost as a kid growing up. I just could show up and win. So I didn’t have to work hard. It was a blessing and a curse.”
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Having never been used to losing, Logano didn’t have the mental skills needed to cope with being a professional driver at the highest level.
“You just feel like a failure. It’s one thing if you’re an underdog,” Logano said. “If you’re the underdog and you get your butt kicked you can go, ‘Well, I wasn’t supposed to win anyways.’ But when you’re the favorite going into whether it’s a game or your career, you’re the prodigy or whatever it may be, the expectation is so high that you feel like you have let down everybody. Not just yourself, your parents, but your team, your sponsors, your fans. Everyone’s looking at you like, ‘You were supposed to be something,’ and ‘You’re the best thing that never happened.'”
Thankfully for Logano, it all worked out in the end. Getting a “fresh start” with Team Penske and the No. 22 car allowed him to grow at the pace he needed to take his game to the next level and become a true contender.
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He’s now a three-time champion, but also, crucially, he knows that losing and failure are two extremely different things when it comes to racing in the Cup Series.
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