It’s 2016, and we’re at Homestead-Miami Speedway for the final race of what has been a thrilling season so far. With 10 laps to go, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Carl Edwards was positioned second on a restart, with fellow championship contender Joey Logano right behind him. Edwards could see victory in his sights. After losing the championship on a race-win tiebreaker to Tony Stewart in 2011, this was set to be his moment of redemption… until it wasn’t.

On the late race restart, Edwards attempted a daring block on Joey Logano, who was trying to aggressively overtake in his bid to win the championship, resulting in Edwards crashing into the wall and wrecking himself while Logano spun out. The crowd was stunned. Edwards got out of his car and was emotionless. He did not know what to do or say. After coming so close to something he had missed by a whisker all his life, Edwards called it quits from racing after that season.

After that race, the Team Penske #22 even said he could never blame Edwards for that move, because a championship was on the line. Logano had said in 2016, “I don’t blame him for running me down there, and I don’t think he blames me for putting my nose down there.” This mutual understanding of the situation between two rivals may come as a surprise, but deep down, Joey Logano and Carl Edwards are more alike than you would think.

Joey Logano finds common ground with Carl Edwards

Joey Logano has never shied away from speaking his mind. But what caught many off guard recently wasn’t his usual fiery race-day talk; it was the introspection. In a candid conversation, Logano opened up about seeing a bit of himself in Carl Edwards, a former rival with whom he now shares more in common than he once thought possible.

The one thing that binds Carl Edwards and Joey Logano together is the glaring contrast in personalities on and off the track. “I feel like we can relate a lot to that,” Logano said ahead of the race at Pocono this Sunday, addressing the perception fans and even fellow drivers once had of Edwards and himself. “Because I feel like when you were racing, everyone looked at you like, Carl is fake and he’s not authentic. He’s not real, right? And you went through the same thing.” It’s a surprising comparison, but not an unfair one.

Both drivers were often misunderstood. Known for their clean-cut, polite public personas, they were anything but soft when strapped into a race car. “You didn’t want to see Carl in your mirror,” Logano admitted. “You’re like, ‘Oh, here we go.’ It wasn’t an easy car to pass. And not supposed to be.” Edwards’ reputation as “The Enforcer” was earned through memorable incidents, such as his notorious payback against Brad Keselowski at Atlanta in 2010, when Edwards intentionally wrecked Keselowski, sending his car airborne late in the race. He was also involved in heated confrontations with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Michigan in 2006, ramming Junior’s car on the cool-down lap after a last-lap spin, which resulted in a $20,000 fine and probation.

As for Joey Logano, he was involved in fierce rivalries too, which shaped his on-track personality, making him a villain whenever he appeared to be a kind soul off the track. From giving Kyle Busch a bloody nose to wrecking Matt Kenseth out of championship contention in 2015, only to get wrecked back the very next week, Logano has seen it all, and he knows what it takes to win and how to separate personalities on and off the track.

Logano added, “I think it’s hard for competitors to understand that there can be a switch that you turn on and off. It’s really healthy to have that because if not, if you lived, if you were the type of person, you were on track, off the track, you’d be a real jerk.” Carl Edwards even admitted, “I tried that. It didn’t work really well.” And this is true, Edwards used to be a fierce driver who was not friends with most people on the grid, but as he started winning races early in his career, something changed.

When Carl Edwards was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2025, he went on a media tour, reflecting on his career choices after years away from the spotlight, and revealed what made him become the kindhearted person we know today. Edwards said February 2025, “I cared more than I should’ve about what I look like, what people thought of me, whether I was tough enough, whether I made enough money. And you guys found the cracks in that facade of reputation… ‘These people don’t know me. Why are they treating me this way?’ And I realized: ‘It’s because you’re kind of becoming an a—-le”

This changed the perspective on his career for Carl Edwards. Looking back, he wished he had been better friends with the guys he was racing with. Edwards has said, “If I had to do it over again, I’d go back. I’d be best friends with these guys off the track. And we’d still race like crazy, but I could have done that better.”

Well, Carl Edwards can’t do it all over again, and that’s the beauty of hindsight. However, his former rival, Joey Logano, is currently living that dual life, and his racing side did not have the best time out at the Tricky Triangle this Sunday.

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Not a good outing for Joey Logano at Pocono

Joey Logano entered the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series event at Pocono Raceway hoping to build on his season’s momentum. But the weekend proved to be a mixed bag for the Team Penske star. Qualifying in 12th position, Logano showed promise early. However, the race ultimately slipped away as the laps wound down.

In the opening stage, Joey Logano managed a respectable seventh-place finish, running solidly in the top 10 and benefiting from a relatively calm run among the leaders. However, as the race progressed and pit strategies began to shuffle the field, Logano found himself struggling to maintain track position.

Despite briefly leading the race during a cycle of pit stops in Stage 2, his time at the head of the pack was short-lived. Alex Bowman quickly passed Logano to assume the lead. And the No. 22 Team Penske Ford? Well, it began to fade from the top tier. As the cautions and strategy calls piled up, Logano was unable to recover. Slowly, by the end of the 400-mile event, he crossed the finish line in 16th place.

Logano’s record at Pocono has been a rollercoaster throughout his career. While he has a career win at the “Tricky Triangle,” his recent performances have been inconsistent. In 2024, he finished 5th, whereas he has only managed a handful of top-10s in his last several starts there. The last win at Pocono? All the way back in 2012. His average finish at the Pennsylvania superspeedway is middling for a former champion. And the 2025 race? It did little to change that narrative.

Do you think Joey Logano can turn his form around playoff time once again? Let us know in the comments!