Joey Logano started his full-time NASCAR career 17 years ago in 2009 with Joe Gibbs Racing, a team renowned for its championship pedigree and consistency in reaching the Championship 4. But despite the team’s successes, Logano’s tenure at JGR did not yield the results he hoped for, with finishes of 20th, 16th, 24th, and 17th over his four seasons. However, a turnaround occurred when he joined Team Penske, where his performance improved, culminating in an eighth-place finish in his debut season with the team.
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While Logano secured two race wins with JGR and several top-5 finishes, his reflections during a discussion with Kevin Harvick on the Happy Hour podcast shed light on his early challenges,
“When I started at Gibbs, I’m 15 years old. At 15 years old what do you know? At that point in my career, I never lost. I just jumped in cars and won and I didn’t have to work at it. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work [at JGR]. It got to the point where we had to break ties.”
Logano recognized that his move to Team Penske represented a second chance to redefine his career. He noted that like anybody else, when you do something the second time, you’re gonna do better. When further asked about the cultural differences at Team Penske that contributed to his success, Logano acknowledged, “I had to go through those years of struggle.”
The champ and his boss. @JoeyLogano and Roger Penske talk with @KevinHarvick. pic.twitter.com/hZUTIfrazh
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 16, 2025
He addressed, “I had to go through there and learn my lessons the hard way. If you want to win you join winners and you watch what they do. There’s not many times that I’ve ever seen this man [Roger Penske] lose in anything… Because of that, you start to watch; it trickles all the way down.”
Over a span of 12 years with Team Penske, Logano has bagged multiple championships. The advent of the Next Gen era has proven especially fruitful for both the team and Logano, with him securing two of these championships within the last three years. Meanwhile, Ryan Blaney, another driver of Team Penske, captured the Cup Championship in 2023.
What led Logano to join Team Penske?
After Logano won the championship race last year at Phoenix, Roger Penske revealed the backstory of why he decided to recruit Joey. He shared that Brad Keselowski first introduced Logano to him, and upon witnessing Logano’s racing abilities, Penske was thoroughly impressed.
Consequently, he reached out to Joe Gibbs, signaling his intention to bring Logano on board. Gibbs requested Penske “to wait a week because they were trying to get sponsorship for him. Were not able to do that, and we put it together.”
Furthermore, back in 2012, the president of JGR indicated that they were contemplating relegating Logano to the Nationwide Series [Xfinity Series] to make room for Matt Kenseth, which could have likely influenced Logano’s transition as well.
While some NASCAR insiders, such as Rusty Wallace, believed it was an error on Team Penske’s part to sign Logano — Wallace remarked back then that Sam Hornish had performed well and expressed disappointment in Penske Racing’s decision, calling it “an absolute sidestep” — Logano has unequivocally disproven these early doubts. With three Cup Championships now under his belt, Logano has certainly validated his worth.
