NASCAR CUP SERIES: COOK OUT 400

August 15, 2026

Joey Logano

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We've now been joined by our race winner, Joey Logano.

Congratulations on the win. Take us a little bit through the race from your vantage point and ultimately big points day for your team. You guys have really found your groove this summer. Talk a little bit about your thoughts and really what you're looking forward to over the next couple races.

JOEY LOGANO: Absolutely. Yeah, we've been able to ride some momentum here right now. It's been a nice turnaround. We've been able to switch our goals from making the Chase to winning the championship. It's quite the turnaround in a month and a half's time or so.

I think it all kind of goes back to a little bit before Chicago probably, we started to see some speed there. Wilkesboro we expected to be good. Indy was strong. I look at the last month and a half, we've been capable of winning all of 'em. It's nice to have been able to run up front and get stage points. That's really the telltale sign in speed of a race car, is how many stage points have you scored. Been able to capitalize a lot on that here recently.

Nice to be up front again. It's a lot more fun doing it this way, I can promise you that (smiling). Tonight was a good race, right till the very, very end. I was able to run the 19 down there right before the last green flag cycle, get around him, then pit the next lap. The boys did a good job on pit road. The strategy was great. The pit stop was great. Able to keep us ahead of him.

I kind of thought I was going to be able to cruise it in because we were so much better than him on the long haul the run before. They made their car a lot better on the last run there. I was a little freer. Got a lot closer than I thought it would be. Ended up being quite the race to the finish.

A good classic, old-school Richmond race with different strategies, execution. Those are the races, they're really fun as racer to be part of. The purest NASCAR fans will absolutely love something like that. Hopefully TV was able to tell a good story on how it all happened and went down Kansas there were a lot of different storylines. It's fun to see all that stuff play out.

THE MODERATOR: We'll now go to questions for Joey.

Q. Your crew chief gave you high credit for being a morale builder, keep the morale high when it's difficult. Give us an idea of how important that is and how tough it might have been this year.

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I'm also a realist, you know? I don't sugarcoat much. Paul doesn't either. We have the tough conversations. I said after Wilkesboro, we had the conversation, it was like, What do we do? Something's not working.

I remember vividly telling him sitting in his office, Paul, if I had the keys to this place, it had my name on the door, I don't know what I would do different.

That was a confusing, frustrating thing to say because I felt like I have all the right people around me, we just weren't winning or running well in that case, which is kind of just confusing, head-scratching.

Proud of everyone sticking together. Those are the times it's hard to do that. Times you see teams break. I'd say it doesn't take much longer running the way we were running until something probably was going to break.

It's nice to see we've been able to make quite the recovery and, like I said, change our goals at this point of the season to where we have a legit shot at winning this championship now. We're getting hot at the right time. It will be a fun chase till the end.

Q. You mentioned you feel like you have a legit chance for the championship. It's probably ultimately going to be decided on mile-and-a-half racetracks. Where do you feel like you stack up? Is the path to the championship realistic for you considering where Penske has been at on the mile-and-a-half's?

JOEY LOGANO: I feel like we've made some good gains. Like I said, Indy, sure it's a beast of its own, but had a car that was good enough to win that one.

Chicago we made some gains to where that last run of the race we were a top-three car. We got there too late when it got to getting the balance right and getting the speed.

Yeah, I feel much better about it. Some of the rules that have been changed recently I think helped us some, kind of brought some of the guys that were taking advantage of some of that stuff more back towards us. I think that helped.

I think that on top of finding a couple things setup-wise that made sense to where we can get the car driving the way I want it took some time to get to that point to where I can get that feel that I want in a car. It's just harder these days. We talk about it all the time. Without the practice, being able to sling springs and test, not being able to do all those things, it's hard to figure out what's magic button is to fix it.

I think we eventually hit on a couple things. Okay, the world is round again. Everything makes sense, we can move on.

Q. You know it's an even year.

JOEY LOGANO: I know, here we come (laughter).

Q. If you had to pick a time in the season to start getting hot and feeling confident, I would imagine right before this whole thing starts this is good timing?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I wish we were a little better off in points than we are. We're getting there, right? We still got a couple more races where we can score a bunch of points.

Next week in Loudon, I feel at home in that racetrack, that's home. Always a special one for me. Hopefully we can bring this amount of speed again and execute like this again. Like I said, even Iowa was strong. Two seconds in the stages. We had that little hiccup on pit road that kept us from finishing top three probably.

Things are good. I wish we were a little bit closer to the front right now. I said before the season started, you got to be top 10 - I said 7 - but I think you can probably recover more than I thought. I think in the top 10 you can make a serious run at winning this thing.

Q. After you won stage two, what was your mentality going into stage three, and ultimately winning the race?

JOEY LOGANO: I mean, here at Richmond you have to play the smart game, right? This is the race where the smart teams, smart driver wins. It's not the hammer-down type racetrack where the fastest driver who can just push their car the most wins. This isn't that type of racetrack. Those drivers pay a penalty for doing that.

It's all about managing, understanding what your car has in it, what you need in your car, how to manipulate the race the best you can, as far as when to push, when not to, when to save, understanding how the race is going to play out. Those things are important here.

Q. There's probably some people in this room, in the garage, fans, they're saying, Oh, my God, they're doing it again, he's doing it again. You said it yourself, you sat with Paul and said, I don't know what I would do different if I had the keys to fix it. So how are you doing it?

JOEY LOGANO: I think everyone is just grinding away. You keep finding little things, like I said. Paul is a great leader. I've said that many times, right? He's a silent leader. Every word has meaning behind it. When he does speak, there's no fluff, there's no sugarcoating, it's direct. He commands respect, as a leader like that.

I think with him, Joe Bisson, our engineer, is spectacular. He's been able to help get the cars a lot faster, where I need to. Between Joe and Paul, they've done a super job at getting us back in the game. On top of just everyone at Team Penske just grinding away, right? Trying to find that little bit more.

I said some of those things stacked up that put us in this spot. Typically in racing it's never one thing. I think there's three or four things stacked up on top of each other at the same time that's brought our level of competitiveness to this level now from where we were running 20th two months ago.

Q. I think this is also the first time since your family expanded everybody's been here to see you win.

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, that was a special, special moment to have everybody. That was the first win as our new larger family. It was fun.

It's fun to get everybody up there and enjoy it. Yeah, be quite the van ride home. We're going to leave in the morning. Too late. Dad can't drive that late (smiling).

Q. You became the 22nd driver in history to lead 10,000 laps with your win. Also tied Rusty Wallace for the most wins with Team Penske. Can you talk about how special that is for you.

JOEY LOGANO: I kind of forgot about that part.

Team Penske to me, it's as home as home gets. Roger has been so loyal, so much fun to work with, whether it's the racing side or recently with the dealership stuff. It's been a blast learning that side of the business from the king, right, the guy that knows it better than anybody.

He's behind me all the way. He's a real special person, him and Walt, Bud, Jonathan, Nelson, guys that are all these guys are great leaders, great people to be around.

I've said it many times: you can't sore like an eagle with you're working with turkeys. This is a great group of people that get the best out of me and challenge me, doing it in right the right way, a professional way. It's been fun to grow there as a human, right, not just as a competitor, but to surround yourself with people that are just that level is going to make you better, right? You're the average of your five friends, right? Got some pretty good ones around me.

Q. You talk about the difference in the last month and a half. Big picture, you're 36 points out of sixth. Is that the next goal for you to go out there and chase?

JOEY LOGANO: I haven't even had a chance to look at it yet. But sure, that sounds good (laughter). I haven't looked at nothing to see who's around us or things like that. I do know that's a good start yeah, sure, good.

How far are we from 4th, 5th? Put you on the spot, didn't I?

Q. Yes, you did.

JOEY LOGANO: Nobody else in here knows? It's a lot of points in two races to make up. Have to have some wicked weekends.

Q. 56 points from fifth.

JOEY LOGANO: From fifth? It's possible. Obviously pretty tough in two races. Daytona's quite the you-never-know situation, especially with the new package.

Q. Looking away from the championship battle, kind of looking big picture at your history at Richmond, before this race, since 2019, you only had two finishes worse than sixth. A couple years ago, the win in 2017, races where the result hasn't reflected in the end the speed you had. How satisfying for you is just seeing the culmination today in a win?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, honestly I was rolling up here in the golf cart. I said that's three year, it should be like six, maybe seven or eight, as strong as we've been here. You name it, it's happened here (smiling). All the different kinds of things. Been quite the highlight reel for the 22 at Richmond.

Q. Has your mentality changed? A month, six weeks ago, it was survival, get as many points, get in the Chase. You're now moving up. Does the mentality shift now with the team, we don't have to be as concerned about points, do some things a little bit differently?

JOEY LOGANO: Probably not because you're still points racing, right? You want to win when you can. When you have nights like tonight, you try to take advantage of it. You're still points racing. You're going to be that way all the way to the end because thinks the new format. This is what everybody wanted, so here you go. You want points racing, you're going to get it (smiling). That's really what it's about now.

You're not caution to the wind like you used to be, all or nothing, win the race, get the Playoff points, all that, or move into the next round, locking yourself in. All that's gone, right? It's about just consistency and points, being good every weekend. That's what this format is now.

You never can really race differently from weekend to weekend.

Q. This is not my words, but the words of some on social media may call you the Mickey Mouse champion.

JOEY LOGANO: Gee, thanks (smiling).

Q. Do you ever feel a fire with this new format, with you guys jumping and playing leapfrog in the points every single week? Do you feel that extra fire to get what some would call a legitimate championship, or do you focus on the big picture?

JOEY LOGANO: To answer the question first, they're all legit. I don't care what the format is. Everyone knew the rules when it started, okay? I'll say that first (smiling).

Do I have a little chip on my shoulder? Yes. That's a clear yes. So much that our little team slogan in our hauler, our scoreboard, is, 4 the Haters. That's where we're at. That's a little good extra motivation. Either way the Mickey Mouse ears look good on the trophies either way, and the check was pretty cool to go with it.

Q. Mark Martin dubbed you as the greatest thing since sliced bread when you were younger. Now you're one win away of tying him on all-time wins list. When you look at the timeline of your career, what's ahead, is there a benchmark that you're looking to get to, a certain target number, especially over the next couple of years?

JOEY LOGANO: No, no. I've never been one of those people that's, like, I need to get to this, unless my career's not complete. I'm literally looking at the hood pins here. I want to win Loudon. That's the next one. I've never looked that far. I never said I need to win this many championships or this many wins.

I am somebody that plans way out in the future, because it's the type of person I am. But when it comes to competing, it's really just about the next race, the next challenge ahead of you. A lot of times if you can handle the next challenge, the things that are far away in the future will come to you. Just takes time to do that.

I've never put that kind of pressure on myself because it's just so -- I don't know, some of those things... Early in my career, if you said I'd have 39 years, I'd say it's unachievable. Especially the first three years of my career, I'd be excited to run this many races, the way it started.

It's cool to hear these stats. Mark Martin is a complete legend in our sport, one of the best to ever do it. To even be associated closely in any way to Mark Martin or Rusty Wallace with the Team Penske wins, all those things are really, really special.

It's something that I don't take for granted. I think I'll think about it more when I am done than right now 'cause, again, I'm still out the windshield, only at the hood pins. Maybe when I'm done, I can look in the mirror and reflect a little bit more.

Q. How have you seen the collective confidence grow in the No. 22 team? How has your confidence grown, if at all?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, the part that I'm most excited about is that this team has gone through moments like this before. This one was probably more extreme than any one we've been through. But we've been able to stick together, which is good.

When you do get the speed, we're able to show back up, right? Sometimes you can kind of lose a little bit of fire, right? You can get a little down. We're human. That attitude is contagious through the team.

Every now and again when you have a fast car, the last thing you want to do is lose it because everyone kind of let their guard down a little bit or just accepted defeat too much. That can happen for the pit crew. That can happen for the guys putting the cars together, not getting that last little bit when they're massaging the car, get that last little piece of downforce, whatever it may be, those parts and pieces they're trying to get.

If you run 20th over and over again, that extra effort can go either way, right? You're either going to fight harder and try to make it up or you're going to accept it and go, We're the 20th-place team. That's where we're going to be this year.

We were in the spot where we could go either way. This team fought harder and kept trying to figure it out. That's what to me is one of the most impressive parts about this team.

A lot of that goes to that we are the team that won the championships together, right? We know we all can do it, which helps you a lot in those moments, to where I don't really have to say that much. Everyone knows we can do it because we've done it.

I think that and just experience on top of that. I love them, but we got an older team. Guys have been doing this for a long, long time on this race team. It's quite the old-school team. I like that. We all gel pretty well together.

Q. The point was made a few minutes ago about it's been a minute since you have been here in Victory Lane at Richmond. From a race craft perspective, what works for you here? What have been some of the biggest changes you've noticed over the years?

JOEY LOGANO: I'll never tell you (smiling).

I mean, Richmond doesn't change much. It's very consistent. It's also usually you see the same cars run good here every time. Once a driver, team kind of get ahold of this place, you're locked in to being good here. It's a finicky place. It doesn't take much to be way off or good. When a team and a driver can understand both what you need to do to be fast for a short run, long run, how to manage the race, it ends up being the same cars almost every time.

Tonight wasn't really any exception to that. You see the Gibbs cars, they've been fast here for years. Old car, new car, our cars have been strong, old car, new car. The drivers, all the Penske cars ran really good tonight, which was great to see.

Yeah, I mean, I think once you get ahold of the place, you kind of got it.

THE MODERATOR: Joey, thank you for coming in, spending some time with us.

JOEY LOGANO: Appreciate it. Safe travels home. Thanks, guys.