For the better part of a year, Joey Logano has had some very unusual cargo riding in the back of his Ram truck. It wasn’t his, and he was only meant to be looking after it. Then a night in Nashville turned that favor into something he never saw coming.
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“He gave me the car, just gave it to me. And I was speechless. I had no idea what to even say. I know of the car because I’ve been storing it for him for the last nine or 10 months,” Logano said on the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio show via X.
“So it’s been in my shop, and I’ve had it in the back of my Ram truck because it looks so freaking cool. And I’ve just been driving it around town in the back of my truck.”
The moment came at the Waltrip Brothers’ Charity Champions Dinner, where Joey Logano, a three-time Cup Series champion (2018, 2022 and 2024), was on stage auctioning off a ride in his drift truck when Darrell Waltrip stepped in.
The Waltrip Brothers’ Charity Championship raises money for Motor Racing Outreach (MRO), which supports the NASCAR community and other charities. The evening therefore carried more weight than a typical fundraiser, and Waltrip chose it to hand over a piece of his own racing past.
Logano later reflected on the night on social media, saying Waltrip had completely surprised him with the gift of his iconic No. 95 Mercury Cyclone. He described himself as absolutely speechless and praised Waltrip as a champion on and off the track.
A Mercury Cyclone with a historic NASCAR connection
The car Logano had been looking after has a history that goes back to one of NASCAR’s best-known races. It shares its chassis with the Holman-Moody Ford Fairlane that Mario Andretti drove to victory in the 1967 Daytona 500.
Holman-Moody later rebodied that chassis as a 1969 Mercury. Waltrip bought it in 1972 for $12,500, and the price included a spare engine and some spare parts. After a couple of heavy crashes, it was rebuilt as a 1971 Mercury Cyclone, the car he took into his first Cup Series race.
That race was the 1972 Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on May 7. Waltrip started 25th, but his engine failed on lap 69, and he finished 38th. He returned to Talladega that August, started 23rd and led seven laps before another engine failure left him 27th. T
hose early setbacks were hardly a sign of what was coming, as Waltrip went on to win 84 Cup races and three championships and earn a place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Even the number on the car was a compromise. Waltrip has said he did not love the No. 95 and would have preferred the No. 17, a number he liked as a fan of David Pearson. He eventually secured it and won his first Cup races with it in 1975.
Logano is not the first driver to be handed a car with that kind of meaning. In 2017, Talladega Superspeedway, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the state of Alabama presented Dale Earnhardt Jr. with the 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo his father drove during his rookie season, ahead of Junior’s final Cup start at the track.
He climbed behind the wheel straight away and took it for a spin, and he was also given two unopened champagne bottles from Victory Lane, one from his father’s final Talladega win in 2000 and another from his own first in 2001. The Monte Carlo itself was given to him on permanent loan, whereas Waltrip’s Cyclone now belongs to Logano outright.
Waltrip has previously passed pieces of his racing history to people who shared an important part of his journey. He gifted Rick Hendrick the Tide firesuit he wore during their time at Hendrick Motorsports and later presented him with his 1989 Daytona 500-winning helmet. Logano’s gift, however, carries an even bigger responsibility: preserving Waltrip’s historic race car.
Few cars in the sport can claim a lineage that runs from a Daytona 500 winner to a Hall of Famer’s first Cup start and now to a three-time champion’s shop. What sets Logano’s situation apart is the timing. He had already been trusted with the car, and the surprise turned that responsibility into ownership. He now intends to treat it as more than a keepsake.
“I’m sure we’re going to be able to do some really fun things, but a really special car, a really special moment for me to be able to, you know, be honored to take care of this car for him into the future,” Logano said.
He also made clear that it is not going anywhere. Given what the car means to Waltrip and to NASCAR history, selling it is off the table.
“So nope, can’t sell it; got to keep it. And it’ll be a part of the family forever. So something really neat.”
For Waltrip, the gift passes a piece of his early career to another Cup Series champion. For Logano, a favor that started as simple storage has become a permanent link to one of the sport’s historic cars.