By Luis Torres, Staff Writer
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Capitalizing in every opportunity has been the tale of two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano and the No. 22 Team Penske crew.
Whether it’s coming out on top at Nashville after five overtimes, advancing into the Round of 8 after Playoff contender Alex Bowman was disqualified to then excelling on pit strategy at Las Vegas that got him in his record breaking sixth Championship 4 appearance. Logano has kept his mindset clear this whole time — team first rather than himself.
The 16-year veteran does have a chance at a third Cup title, which would lead all active drivers as the last driver to join this club was Tony Stewart in 2011.
Logano has instead concentrated on the people who got him to Phoenix with the potential outcome.
“Obviously it would be great. I guess when it comes to individually, I don’t think about it that much,” said Logano. “I think of it more of a team ’cause I know what a championship is worth to everybody. I think that matters more.
“The individual piece of saying you got three of ’em, like that’s great, don’t get me wrong. I think ’cause I’m still doing it, I guess I don’t look at that that much. But I’d like to see the people that I care about at our race team celebrate.”
No driver has won the Cup title with an average finish of 15th or worse. After 35 races, Logano has an average finish of 17.6, the lowest among the title contenders and his worst since joining Penske in 2013. But it’s just a number at this point, considering how they’ve been able to improve after the No. 22 team and Ford in general struggling from time-to-time.
Despite the angst where he didn’t win until the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro before taking the checkered flag at a points race at Gateway, Logano never doubt his team’s capability to overcome adversity.
“We’ve done this before. It kind of seems like our way of doing it,” said Logano. “We want to win more earlier than that. It seems like for whatever the reasons are, just many reasons on why it happens, but we’re able to really recover seasons. It’s something I’m really proud of because there’s a lot of teams that would look at it and say,
“We’re going to call it a rebuilding year. Sports teams call it a rebuilding year. It’s an excuse for sucking. We don’t do that. We’re going to go to work and try to figure out how to be better and salvage…
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