Over the course of his NASCAR career, Jeff Gordon put his name in front of a lot of records in the history books. But the thing with records is that they are meant to be broken. Just as Gordon broke the records of those who came before him, one day his could be broken too, except for one. There’s one Jeff Gordon record that no NASCAR driver may ever be able to surpass, no driver except for maybe Joey Logano.
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This record is for the most consecutive starts in the sport. Between Nov. 15, 1992, and Nov. 22, 2015, Gordon had 797 back-to-back starts. The driver who came closest to Gordon was Kevin Harvick (784 starts).
But the driver who can not only come close but surpass this record of Gordon is 2x Cup champion Logano, who is aware of how seemingly unbelievable, and near-impossible to break Gordon’s record is.
“I have to be healthy the whole time. That’s what makes the record so amazing. He didn’t get thrown out for anything. He didn’t get sick. He didn’t get hurt. That’s impressive. Especially in the race terms, in his whole career, he wasn’t in the safest car. I mean, it continued to get better but it’s incredible what he accomplished,” Logano said in a recent interview. “I feel like that record isn’t talked about a lot because for one, no one’s even close. Even I’m still a long, long way away. I might be the only guy that can actually get to it. But it is a long way away.”
“8 years is a long way away.”
Can @joeylogano become the next #NASCAR ironman?
If he starts every single race from here on out, he’d break the record in early 2031…
️ “I think I might be the only guy that can actually get to it, but it is a long ways away.” pic.twitter.com/te3JMmtsfB
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) February 16, 2024
Joey Logano on the bittersweet side of his 2023 campaign
Speaking before he earned the pole position for the first time ahead of the Daytona 500, Joey Logano admitted that last year for the #22 team was a pretty rough one, especially considering he was defending the championship. “Sometimes you have an off year, and we unfortunately had that,” Logano said.
Having said that, the Team Penske driver claimed that “not everything was bad,” and there were things, a lot of things that they did “really, really well.” Logano added, “Our team still executes races as good or better than anybody. We can make our car finish a lot better than where it runs more times than not.”
“So that says a lot about our team.”
But it still goes without saying that in 2024, Joey Logano will be hoping to bounce back from the underwhelming results of 2023. At 33, Logano still has a long way to go in NASCAR, to build his legacy, win more races, more championships, break more records, and maybe, just maybe, surpass the numbers of someone like Jeff Gordon.
