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“You Don’t Do It for Fun”: Joey Logano Reveals Mentality Behind Racing at the Top Level of NASCAR

Jerry Bonkowski
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NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates in victory lane with the winner’s trophy after he wins the Wurth 400 race at Texas Motor Speedway.

In a sense, Joey Logano is somewhat of a walking — make that driving — contradiction. While the Connecticut native enjoys NASCAR racing and has said it’s fun countless times, there’s a fine line between fun and the serious business of winning.

And winning is something Logano is all about. He’s earned 37 wins including Texas last month, and 169 top-fives and 291 top 10 finishes in 593 career starts in the Cup Series. And let’s not forget his three Cup championships: 2018, 2022 and 2024, the most of any active driver in the series.

While winning is fun, there’s an all-business mindset that Logano goes into every race with, putting the fun aside and using all of his skills and talent and business-like demeanor to reach victory lane. He was asked about that distinction between fun and business last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Logano told Frontstretch.com. “I like cars, but when you get to this level, you don’t do it for fun because there’s a lot on the line. Do I want to go racing for fun? Sure, and when I want to do that I’ll jump in a go-kart and I’ll go do that for fun with my buddies.

“But when you get to this level and you’re racing for people’s bonuses, there’s a lot more on the line than doing this type of stuff for fun. So, no, I don’t do it for fun, I don’t look to have fun.

“I’m not disappointed if I didn’t have fun today. That’s not the expectation. The expectation is to try to win and do that and then we’ll have fun, if that’s the case. That’s how I’ll view it.”

As much as he likes winning, there’s also something Logano absolutely hates

Why is Logano so determined to win? The reason is both simple and succinct.

“I hate losing,” Logano said recently to Fox61 in his native Connecticut. “I have a fairly short memory when it comes to success. If you win, that’s great.

“But if I have a couple of bad weeks after that, I’ll forget about that win pretty quickly. I just want to get back to the winning ways.” And winning is what drives Logano in everything he does.

“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it to win,” he added. “It’s really the only reason to do it. I want to win really badly. I just don’t want to lose more than anything.”

The three Cup Series titles under his belt suggest that Logano’s ‘all work and no play’ approach more than proves its worth.

Post Edited By:Abhishek Ramesh

About the author

Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski

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Jerry Bonkowski is a veteran sportswriter who has worked full-time for many of the top media outlets in the world, including USA Today (15 years), ESPN.com (4+ years), Yahoo Sports (4 1/2 years), NBCSports.com (8 years) and others. He has covered virtually every major professional and collegiate sport there is, including the Chicago Bulls' six NBA championships (including heavy focus on Michael Jordan), the Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX-winning season, the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs World Series championships, two of the Chicago Blackhawks' NHL titles, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour debut, as well as many years of beat coverage of the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA for USA Today. But Jerry's most notable achievement has been covering motorsports, most notably NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA drag racing and Formula One. He has had a passion for racing since he started going to watch drag races at the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip (otherwise known as "Where the Great Ones Run!") in Hobart, Indiana. Jerry has covered countless NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA races and championship battles over the years. He's also the author of a book, "Trading Paint: 101 Great NASCAR Debates", published in 2010 (and he's hoping to soon get started on another book). Away from sports, Jerry was a fully sworn part-time police officer for 20 years, enjoys reading and music (especially "hair bands" from the 1980s and 1990s), as well as playing music on his electric keyboard, driving (fast, of course!), spending time with Cyndee his wife of nearly 40 years, the couple's three adult children and three grandchildren (with more to come!), and his three dogs -- including two German Shepherds and an Olde English Bulldog who thinks he's a German Shepherd.. Jerry still gets the same excitement of seeing his byline today as he did when he started in journalism as a 15-year-old high school student. He is looking forward to writing hundreds, if not thousands, of stories in the future for TheSportsRush.com, as well as interacting with readers.

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