NASCAR CUP SERIES: BASS PRO SHOPS NIGHT RACE

September 19, 2026

Joey Logano

Press Conference

An Interview with:

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THE MODERATOR: We're going to continue our post-race media availabilities. We've been joined by our race winner Joey Logano. Joey, congratulations on that win. You are officially 16 points back from the lead in the championship standings, and obviously we often joke, it's an even year, and you are Joey Logano.

Take us through a little bit of tonight, your vantage point, and ultimately your outlook moving forward?

JOEY LOGANO: Well, we're in a lot better spot than we were going in. Things change really, really quickly. We started this thing, what were we, 70 something points behind when we started this thing three weeks ago and we've moved up to we're in the teens away.

So super proud of the team being able to execute the first three races, makes up a little bit for last week when we led a lot of laps and didn't make it happen.

This one kind of came full circle for us. Kind of went up the racetrack and that was the right place at the right time and drove underneath him and finished it off. It's funny how racing works sometimes, it goes one way or the other.

But what a NASCAR race. What else would you want in a race? That was exciting from every different angle.

The fans, you can hear them. I think that was about as awesome as it gets.

Q. Do you have a number in mind of the number of points you want to be leaving Charlotte heading into the last four-race stretch, which sets up pretty good for you guys?

JOEY LOGANO: Oh, we keep throwing around this 40-point average number that we think it's going to take. I don't know. It might take more, might take less. A lot of things depend on how things go, how you average.

I don't know. You just try to score more. You just keep trying to get all you can. We can try to complicate it as much as you want and say, hey, you've got to have a goal here.

But really if you just -- it sounds so cliche -- if you just do your best, you know, but if you just do your best out there and get as many points as you possibly can, you see where you stack up at the end. That's how it works now.

It's not like you need to be so much over the cut anymore. It's just you've just got to keep yourself in the game. There's a lot of racing to go from here.

Q. Your thoughts on the post-race fracas between Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar?

JOEY LOGANO: I haven't seen it. I'm sure I'll see it all week long, but I haven't seen much. I don't know exactly what all went down, what started it, what happened. I don't know nothing at the moment. It's okay; I'll see it later.

Q. I am curious, how razor thin is that divide between being collected in somebody else's mess and taking advantage of when other people get together. It seemed like you were right there when Carson got into Blaney, avoided that, and then when all that stuff unfolded in the final laps you're able to take advantage and jump to the lead.

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, it was close. When I seen Blaney spin I was already committed into the corner, so I couldn't -- Coleman was yelling at me, get down, get down, get down.

I'm like, I've already sent it way too deep in here to turn it to the left anymore. I was just watching him. I mean everybody know Bristol is it's self-cleaning, so I assumed he's come back down. Just had to be patient and wait for it.

Yeah, at the end of the race -- you make the decision every lap, do you want to run the top or the bottom, and a lot of it's always depending on what's going on in the windshield or in the rear view mirror.

In this case, I seen they were two wide for the lead. Larson looked like he was -- I thought he was going to go to the bottom and then he went up. I was like, okay, I'll just do the opposite, I'll go to the bottom. Hopefully they wash each other out, and that's exactly what happened. Just rolled underneath him.

So like I said, it kind of came full circle from last week when you feel like you got beat at the end and not much you can do about it, and this time they all just kind of cleared the way and the seas parted for me and around I went.

It honestly is kind of flashbacks to Richmond years ago when Brad and Kenseth were going at it and Jeff Gordon was in the mix and they all kind of went up the track and I was like, thanks, kind of rolled the bottom. It felt a lot like that.

I mean the key thing to it all, though, is you've got to be close enough to take advantage of those opportunities. You're running fifth or sixth, you're not there to take advantage of those moments when they do happen.

We had a good car tonight. I was super happy with the way it was driving. It honestly felt like the Bristol of old for me. The car was doing just like it did in the old days and the track was kind of the way it was in the old days for me.

Everything kind of came right back and I was like, this is going to be a good day. I could tell about 30 laps into the race it was going to be a good one.

What I'm most excited about is my son Hudson back there. He was talking crap to me on the way up here in the van saying I've never won on the concrete. Well, I have. He just wasn't alive. So how about that now, homey?

Q. The intensity in the final 100 laps of this race seemed to ratchet up. I'm sure part of it was because there were so many restarts but the there were restarts because there were cautions. As a driver, do you feel that intensity ratcheting up and do you attribute that to the time of year that it is as well?

JOEY LOGANO: I mean, everyone just wants to win, right? When you bunch everybody up -- you know, there's a good chance that if the caution hadn't come out in that cycle it was going green to the finish. I don't know what happened during the green flag cycle that made the caution come out. Something with the 35. I don't really know how it happened.

Then it's bunched up. It's jumbled up. That's one part, right, because now you had cars with different tires, you had lap cars mixed in with the lead lap cars because we all waved around.

So you had some guys that were still down one in front of you and everyone was trying to work their way and weave their way and got to be aggressive on the restarts to get there.

I'm sure just people were running into each other.

Then late race you've got guys racing for the win up there. Yeah, I mean, you can kind of see the writing on the wall when you saw the cast of characters, and I was like, hmm, this could be an adventure. It was an adventure.

Q. I know you didn't see the start of the 12 and the 77 ordeal, but for it to reach the boiling point it did on pit road, do you feel like that was something that was bound to happened given the track record or reputation that's been earned over the last couple years for Carson?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, again, I don't know the details of what happened there and how and why. I don't feel comfortable speaking on it until I see anything. I'd probably say something I regret if I haven't seen it.

Like I said, I'm sure I'll see it. They'll probably forget who won the race. (Laughing).

Q. Joey, you stayed out when the competition caution came out, and I talked to Paul when he was in here about the decision that went into that. Was there concern on your part from the driver's seat about after you win the first stage and you pit, you're going to be further back in the pack? Was there any concern about being back in the pack?

JOEY LOGANO: Absolutely there was. That was something we talked about for hours this morning. It still wasn't real clear. It's such a hard call. It could have gone either way.

Yeah, it worked out for us. On one hand, if you stay out, you'd better go win the stage, because if not you're buried, so you'd better at least get what you're out there for because you're going to get buried.

What I was most impressive with was our car to be able to drive from 16th to third in the next stage. That was pretty dang impressive to me, to have a car that can do all that. So that part was really cool.

It ended up working out. But on the flipside, you could have done what the 12 did and he pitted and stayed out and won the stage that way and had track position and position to win.

You can look at that a couple different ways. Obviously it worked out for us at the end, but it very well could have gone the other way. We could have got caught up in a mess when we were at 16th. We may not have drive back up to third, and you didn't get no points that way.

But you try to work all the stuff out, and at the same time you're like, well, we were first, and how do you give up points later in the race. Then you would be kicking yourself if you didn't take those points.

So it's not an easy call. They placed that caution in like -- I mean, they knew what they were doing. It was the worst possible spot to put a caution because it really splits the field.

But that's what makes it interesting. That's why the crew chiefs get paid the big bucks. It's an important call. It's a team sport. I can't say that enough. It takes everybody to do it.

Yeah, it was a good call. Worked out.

Q. When you guys are unloading in like the 30s and are just not where you guys typically are, there was a part of that year like at Michigan you said you guys were just open minded. Are the 12 trying some things we should do? We'll do that. 2, whatever. Is it ultimately how you guys worked yourselves out of that? Is it just the metric and winning races? How did you go from that point to this point?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, it's got nothing to so with the metric. It's just slowly grinding away. In sports, and especially in NASCAR racing, it's not one thing. But we just kind of ground it out together.

And you have those hard conversations. You start doubting yourself. That's obvious. We're all human; we're all think about that stuff. Man, what is it; where am I missing it. We all gave our opinions of what it is.

I don't think anyone had a clear answer that that was it or this was it, but overall I think we just slowly got a couple things setup-wise that started making sense. Like okay, this for me works.

There are some things -- we obviously look at our teammates' stuff and there was races -- plenty of races we put in the identical setup to the 12. Sometimes it worked good, sometimes it brought us a little bit closer maybe, and sometimes it was like, I still don't got it.

We ran the 12's setup here in the spring and I wasn't as good as he was. I was okay, but I couldn't make it go as fast. Then we tuned off of that, and now we've got something that I felt like we were comparable to the 12 tonight just depending on who was in front of who was how that was going to work out.

Got us in the ballpark, and then we can kind of do our little things from there. Yeah, sometimes you've got to drop back and punt on some of the things you were doing and go down a different road.

Q. You set a new record tonight for Team Penske with the most wins by a driver in the NASCAR Cup Series, surpassing Rusty Wallace. I was wondering what that accolade means to you.

JOEY LOGANO: It's really special. Roger Penske has been incredible to me, my family. To have the opportunity to drive cars for him, there's nowhere else I'd rather drive. It's really just part of the family at this point.

The way he operates, the way he does things, the way the leadership is at our team with Mike Nelson and Travis Geisler, they do a fantastic job there and Jonathan and Bud and everybody. It puts the sponsors on the race car. Everyone does a really good job. I'm surrounded by good people.

It's really been, obviously, what I needed, whatever it's been, 15 years ago or whatever it's been. It's been a while now. Yeah, it's neat. It's not something that I looked at much of saying, hey, I wanted to be the winningest Cup driver there. I didn't really think about it much. But last win tying Rusty, obviously I knew about it, and to be able to take over on that, that's cool.

But I think we're all still part of one big family over there, and we just want to keep getting more. We're not done yet.

Q. Joey, when this Chase started you were ninth; you were 65 points back. Now you're 16th, so you've gained 49 points in three races. Larson was seventh; 55 back. He has gained 56. I understand you guys are both champions and these are championship teams, but to make this much ground and gain this much positions over teams above you that also are championship-quality teams, what kind of an accomplishment is that to do in such a short time, for both of you to be able to really be in the championship conversation, whereas three weeks ago it was more of these are outsiders at best?

JOEY LOGANO: I mean, you thought that, I didn't. But yeah, it was a big hole that we dug ourselves into, there's no doubt, and trying to make that up on, to your point, the best teams, it's really hard to do that. It goes to show, though, on one hand we've done a tremendous job at making up those points. Both those teams have.

But it goes to show how quickly it can go the other way. You've got to get hot at the right time and take advantage of the cars when you have them. We've been fortunate enough to go to some racetracks that we've been good at in the past historically and we've been able to capitalize on those, so that's helped us close that gap some.

But if you look at the run we've been on since 10 plus weeks ago where we've really started to work our way back up from we were 20th in points at one point, so we've really scratched and clawed to where we have a shot at winning the championship now.

There was a moment where I was like, I don't think we're going to make the Chase here; this is going to hurt. Just crazy how quickly things can turn around. You're never out of it. You've just got to -- it's just kind of like the old playoff, though. You've just got to stay alive and hit the next day hard.

Q. I know your journey isn't done, but how remarkable is it in your mind, like you said, being 20th a couple months ago to being third, and had you won, you would have been the points leader tonight?

JOEY LOGANO: It's been a good comeback. They'll have to change the points format again. (Laughter.)

Q. When you look ahead now to these next three races, three mile-and-a-halfs, what's your outlook for this next stretch of the Chase?

JOEY LOGANO: I mean, it's more of the same. We've just got to keep, again, grinding it out, getting as many points as humanly possible. You try to bring the best cars to the racetrack, qualify good, get stage points and finish good.

This points format, it's an average. That's all -- every race is equally as important as the next. It's just about averaging the most points you possibly can get, so nothing changes here.

The goal the whole time has been to win the championship. It hasn't been to finish fifth. It's been to go all the way. We're closer than we've been. We've just got to ride the momentum now and that confidence that the team has is going to keep rolling with it.