A lot of people don’t like Joey Logano.
For some reason, ever since the Team Penske driver broke into the NASCAR Cup Series in 2008 as an 18-year-old prodigy heralded by Mark Martin, Logano has rubbed people the wrong way.
At the age of 31 and 14 years into his full-time Cup career, the list of drivers Logano had ticked off or feuded with is long and distinguished.
Kevin Harvick — (“His wife wears the firesuit in the family“)
Tony Stewart — (“I’m gonna bust his ass.”)
Chase Elliott — (“I had to force an apology, which to me is just childish. .… But golly, man. Be the man and take the hit when you’re done with it.”)
Denny Hamlin — (Impersonating Logano after a scuffle: “Oh, that’s short track racing!“)
Kyle Busch — (Post pit-road fight: “That’s how Joey races, so he’s going to get it.”)
Martin Truex Jr. — (“He may have won the battle, but he ain’t winning the damn war.”)
And of course, Matt Kenseth.
Golly, that’s a lot.
No matter which way you cut it, Logano’s made enemies of a good chunk of the field, primarily with the biggest stars in the garage.
It showed last month at Talladega Superspeedway. As I stood on pit road before the Cup race, driver introductions unfolded at the far end of tri-oval. The loudest boos by far were for Busch and Logano.
Another fan base was given reason to show its displeasure Sunday (May 8) in the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
And quite honestly, it might be the most surprising entry to Logano’s rap sheet outside of Truex.
“He’s just an idiot. He does this stuff all the time. I’ve seen it with other guys,” William Byron – yes, William Byron! — said minutes after Logano performed a bump-and-run on him to take the lead and then win the race with two laps to go.
“He’s just a moron. He can’t win a race so it does it that way.”
If I were make a sketch of the kind of driver who could elicit these kind of reactions from such a wide range of drivers, it would not look like Logano, who when he’s wearing his glasses could pass for the dad from the “Calvin & Hobbes” comic strip.
Logano clearly doesn’t care about making friends. He cares about winning.
While he ruffles feathers, an instant later he could be dropping an “awe shucks” line and it’s just as genuine.
“You’re not going to put me in the wall and not get anything back. That’s how that works,” Logano declared Sunday before pivoting to an effort to inspire future racers with his throwback paint scheme.
Even in the moment immediately after the race, fans showed their feelings toward Logano in a mixture of boos and cheers.
Asked if he cared about being called a “moron” by Byron, Logano shrugged it off.
“I’ve been called a lot of things, a lot worse than moron, too,” Logano said. “I just witnessed a lot of it when I got out of the car actually. But no, that’s fine. Whatever. Call me what you want.”
In some ways, and this is not an exact comparison, Logano reminds of Dale Earnhardt.
Unlike Kyle Busch, who seemingly has a perpetual scowl on his face, Logano can get into a nasty feud or an on-track incident and sometimes come away grinning or making a one-liner.
He’ll do what he thinks he needs to do to win, even if maybe there’s an alternative.
“I’m not going to get bullied; I’ll tell you that much,” Logano said. “That’s how the sport works. Our sport has worked like this for years.
“Like I said, if that wasn’t how it happened, if that’s not how he took the lead, I’m not making that move. I’m going to try to race cleaner and make the pass a different way, but at that point I knew there was one way to guarantee a victory, so I was taking that maneuver at that point.”
Sunday’s race and its aftermath sort of felt like a full circle moment.
At one point, Logano was in Byron’s shoes. He was a young talent who was likely rushed up to the Cup Series way too quickly and it showed. He struggled to win for four years as veteran drivers, like Harvick at Pocono in 2010, ran over him when they could.
He’s been there, done that. Wasn’t a fan.
Now, in 2022, after being underestimated in his early years and with 29 Cup wins and a title on his record, Logano is plenty willing to dish it out.
“If you’re gonna race a certain way, you gotta expect to be raced that way back,” Logano said last month in reference to the trials of Ty Gibbs. “That’s the driver code and nobody can understand, that’s it. If you’re willing to push, you gotta be willing to take some pushes, and that’s kind of what it comes down to.”
2022 is Daniel McFadin’s ninth year covering NASCAR, with six years spent at NBC Sports. This is his second year writing columns for Frontstretch. His columns won third place in the National Motorsports Press Association awards for 2021. His work can also be found at SpeedSport.com. And you can hear more from him on his podcast.
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.