Defending Champion Joey Logano Reflects on “Broken System” of Drivers Paying for Their Seats

Published 02/28/2023, 2:00 PM EST

Recently, defending Cup Series champion Joey Logano made an appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger. He spoke on a range of issues, one of them being about a major problem that has cropped up in the stock car series. To be precise, he was referring to the influx of drivers in NASCAR who have to pay for their seats. Logano even acknowledged that this issue is not endemic to NASCAR, but it is present in different motor racing disciplines.

The Team Penske driver told Graham Bensinger, “You look at the back half of the Cup field, all of them are bringing money to drive the car. It’s outside of Penske, Hendrick, Gibbs, maybe Trackhouse, Stewart-Haas type of team, for the most part. Everyone else is paying to drive.

“It’s a bit of a broken system, but it’s like that in all forms of motorsport. It’s not like that in NBA or in the NFL, if you’re talented, you’re good, you’re in. That’s it. You can be talented and good, and never make it in motorsport. Just because of the cost of being there.”

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How has Joey Logano performed this season?

So far, Logano’s 2023 Cup Series campaign has got off to a decent start as he prepares to defend his crown. At the Daytona 500, he finished 2nd behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

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Meanwhile, at the Auto Club Speedway he finished in 10th place, which is fairly respectable. Especially considering that the Chevrolet cars were running riot and his bitter rival Kyle Busch won the race.

Logano was actually the third-fastest Ford, behind Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin was the only Toyota representative in the Top 10, while the other six cars were Chevys. Now, all that Logano can do is wonder what could have been and then focus on the next race.

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Next on the calendar is the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which is Busch’s backyard. So Joey Logano would love nothing more than to score a win on bitter rival Kyle Busch’s home turf.

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Written by:

Dhruv George is a senior Motorsports author for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.

Edited by:

Nischal Kandpal