Joey Logano might not be making the most of his season right now, considering his recent performances. However, he has found himself tied to a conversation much bigger than racing. As households continue to struggle with gas prices, a major campaign from his sponsor has seen a massive number of sign-ups. The most interesting part? The campaign wasn’t supposed to take this turn.

Joey Logano’s sponsor’s campaign takes an unexpected turn

Earlier in February, Shell, sponsor of the #22 team on the Cup Series field, launched a special promotion via its mobile application. This allowed the users to save 22¢ per gallon of gas on all grades of Shell gasoline if they filled up on a race day. And the company called the campaign “Race Day Rewards.”

This was like any other campaign that the brand has launched in the past; however, there was a massive difference in timing. Shortly after Shell launched it, the Middle East conflict between the US and Iran, which impacted global trade, also spiked the price of oil across America. The national average went from $2.90 per gallon to $4.02 per the Sports Business Journal. Amidst this, users found the Shell campaign extremely useful, and the brand witnessed a record-breaking number of sign-ups on their app.

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It is important to understand that in no way was Shell trying to make a profit from the Middle East conflict. In fact, the campaign, as mentioned, was launched before any of the conflict began.

Fearing the same inference, Shell, Team Penske, and Joey Logano took a safe approach as fuel prices rose, avoiding heavy promotion of a program that could be seen as profiting from a crisis. They didn’t play up its relevance to rising costs, keeping messaging fairly muted.

Still, the accidental timing proved to be fortunate for many. Hence, the Race Day Rewards campaign has been a huge success with engagement levels four times higher than usual. Shell says 395,136 users signed up, and total redemptions rose to 489,181. The participation exploded quickly, with about 40,000 new opt-ins in a week. The company also said that the promotion helped push its app up the iPhone App Store rankings, though that detail has not been independently confirmed yet.

Moreover, performance metrics for the month of March shattered all previous records. The app recorded its all-time high in monthly sales and transaction volume and its largest 90-day increase in active users. Digital transactions hit a single-day record high on the platform, and active users rose by 179,000 compared to February in the U.S. alone. There was a very high level of engagement from users, with close to 30% of users reopening the app after a weekly push notification about the offer, well above the usual benchmark of around 5%.

Joey Logano, more or less, has been the face of the campaign. Shell kicked it off with a massive deal with Team Penske, and that seems to be going well for them. However, the team hasn’t been doing so well on track, especially with the #22 crew. Logano has been struggling, yet he believes he can save his season.

Logano lays out the plan to save his season

Unlike the previous seasons, Logano doesn’t have the option to win one race and get into the playoffs. Currently following the Chase championship format, the drivers will have to remain extremely consistent throughout the season, win races, and establish dominance at the top of the table to contend for the title – none of which the #22 car has shown so far.

But still, Joey Logano seems to be rather optimistic about his run going ahead this season. In fact, while speaking to Todd Gordon earlier, he explained that there is even a mathematical possibility of climbing the ranks within a single race.

“If you have a solid race where you can score 40 plus points, top five all day long, right?” he said. “And let’s say the #9, not wishing bad luck on anybody here. Let’s say he had a rack, or something went wrong, and he scored one or two, three points. All of a sudden, you’ve jumped that car that’s 5th from 12th.”

While it is quite understandable that such a result in a single race is unlikely (which Logano also knows), it gives him a sense of security in his campaign to chase the Cup Series championship.

He hasn’t won any races so far this season. In fact, the entire Ford lineup has only won a single Cup race, which came from his teammate, Ryan Blaney. But heading to the Talladega Superspeedway next, better performance can be expected from the #22 crew, as the entire Penske lineup has better odds of winning.