For Joey Logano, redemption looks like the Martinsville Speedway. The Team Penske driver has been struggling to bring his team a good points haul since the start of the season. His misery is alleviated by the fact that the current championship system only favors drivers who have been consistent throughout the season. However, that might end up changing tomorrow, according to his latest interview.

Joey Logano eyes victory tomorrow at Martinsville

Today’s qualifying was definitely good news for Joey Logano. At a track where track position is most important, Logano was able to secure P9 to start his race. With that, Joey Logano believes that his team is finally coming to terms with their setup and can challenge for the victory tomorrow if they play the cards right.

“Okay, I thought it was at home. I love it being free but not too bad; the race trim was really good. I thought it was kind of keeping me for the win tomorrow, so. Feels nice after last week, so yeah, nice having a fast car.”

Darlington was a rough race for Logano. He went on to finish the race in P33, bringing even more trouble to his camp after a string of unlucky finishes. At the season opener, it looked like Logano was ready to challenge his rivals for a title campaign again in the new era. However, after his P3 at the Daytona 500, Logano ended up disappearing behind the pack.

After a back-of-the-row finish at Darlington, Logano says that his team had to put in some extra effort to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

“As you would expect, I kind of just—we still save our routine of how we debrief things. But obviously, a little bit more in-depth, being that far off last week. So, a little bit more to talk about and a little bit more about where your weakness is, what your mistakes are, and where things are at. And you know, try to come up with some answers to process how do we get better.”

But it’s not like their morale has gone down at all. Logano was among the drivers who were able to utilize the playoff format to their best advantage. With that aiding him, he won three championships for Team Penske, bringing them a lot of success. His latest title was back in the 2024 season, where he fought off teammate Ryan Blaney in the Championship Four race.

As such, his team recognizes his strengths and knows that they can claw out of the hole they’re in currently. “After 20 years you go through the ups, and unfortunately you go through the downs, and you just have to remember you’re in—obviously it’s a strong team. 

“I did tell Paul last week and said, ‘If you told me I had four rings in the company, I could do it all over if I wanted. I wouldn’t change a thing. We got a great team, got a great pit crew, got a great crew chief, and got a great car chief; everybody is good. We just had an off day; it just got messed up.’ So that happens at times, but it doesn’t mean you pull the panic button.”

While Logano knows the value of patience, how does he cope with difficult races like Darlington? Does he even let go of the failure?

Joey Logano describes the process of moving on

Nearly every driver has a bad race every now and then. So how do they move on from the lingering effects of that failure? For Joey Logano, it seems like the best method to first relive it all and let his mind process the mistakes and adapt accordingly. Only then is he truly able to let go of the misery.

“I mean, you got to relive it, right? The easy thing to do is what you want to do: pull out of the racetrack and forget about it. Unfortunately, you can’t do that because if you do, you probably will have more of those days. You’ve got to relive a day or two and go through every detail and relive misery one more time, but that’s just part of life. 

“You do that and move on. Eventually you got the close book, but that’s usually a Monday or Tuesday type of thing, but you actually got to close the book and move forward and look at the next race.”

That is the thing with champions. They know exactly what to do and when to do it. For someone with multiple race victories and championships to his name, Logano understands the value of learning from his mistakes. 

At the same time, he knows that hanging on to them forever is only going to make things worse for him. So eventually, he moves on and starts to work harder towards finding his next victory.