Barely old enough to drive on the road, Joey Logano was hailed as the next big thing in NASCAR back in 2008. The rookie had plenty of hype behind him as he made his first foray into the stock car racing big leagues. Touted as a prodigy destined for the record books, he entered the sport with sky-high expectations.
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And while that hype has proven justified in 2025, back when Logano was just starting out in the Cup Series, NASCAR was quick to serve humble pie to the now 34-year-old.
The now three-time champion of the sport recently looked back on his journey, which initially started with Joe Gibbs Racing. JGR is one of the sport’s biggest teams, and Logano reflected on how his time with them did not go as planned.
He reflected on how building up a young athlete — especially a driver — before they’ve truly proven themselves can lead to overconfidence, something he admitted to struggling with early on.
The Team Penske driver explained how all the talk surrounding him contributed to losing his job at JGR on a recent episode of the Marty & McGee podcast. He said, “I showed up with all the hype, and then just was like, ‘Eh.’ I didn’t really perform at the level I needed to, to the point where I lost my job.”
That moment gave Logano the reality check he needed to truly get his head in the game. He continued, “I believed the hype. When you’re 18 years old or even younger and everyone’s telling you you’re the next best thing that’s going to come in the sport, you’re like, ‘Yeah, watch this.’ As much as it helped my career because of the opportunities I got, it also hurt me because I drank the Kool-Aid, you know what I mean?”
“I believed it so much that I didn’t work at anything, just was like, ‘I’m good, I’m naturally talented, I’m fine.’ I needed a slice of humble pie,” admitted the veteran driver ahead of the 2025 NASCAR All-Star Race.
And did that humbling moment work for the #22 Ford driver? With three championships in the Cup Series and a P2 finish during the All-Star Race from last Sunday, leaving him absolutely livid, it is for you to decide.
“It can ruin somebody just as quickly as it gives them the opportunity to become something,” ultimately added Logano. He certainly is not the most humble of drivers on the field today. But even the most die-hard anti-Joey Logano fans would agree: he’s better than he used to be.
