Kyle Busch once said, “If you love you some Rowdy, let me hear you go, Boo.” That was NASCAR’s winningest driver’s way of embracing the role of the villain, the one driver in the garage who got booed when he won and cheered on when he wrecked. But Busch never went against that personality and instead used it to fuel himself to further wins.
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After Rowdy, the moniker of villain passed on to Joey Logano, someone who took a completely different approach to the hate he receives. Logano doesn’t like the villain tag that was bestowed on him in 2013, and 13 years later, he doesn’t understand the hate he’s getting. When journalist Tim Moore asked the Team Penske driver if he imagines a day that all NASCAR fans would cheer for him, Logano’s answer was a deep one.
“Negative people should not run society and should not run your life,” said Logano. “And unfortunately, that happens a lot in our world. And that’s why I hate shining a light on these haters and negative people because there’s so much positive going on that the light should be on. And for some reason, that part doesn’t shine that bright in people’s lives sometimes. And so it’s sad for them. I hate it for them.”
Logano explained that there are positive things happening in his life and those around him at Team Penske, and he would rather focus on that instead of the negativity and the hate that often comes his way. But he also said that he doesn’t see himself as a villain.
“I don’t feel like I’m a villain in any way. I’m like the most smiling villain you’ve ever seen. Like I’m happy. I’m joking around. I have a good time,” said Logano. “You know, like I don’t see the villain side that people try to put on me. I guess it’s the way we’ve won our championships. And that’s just what it is.”
Logano brought up the point on how Team Penske won their Championships when they won consecutive titles with Logano in 2022 and 2024, with Ryan Blaney winning in 2023. Penske’s masterful tactics of ensuring that they took the early season easy and peaked exactly when required to give their drivers the best chance to win under the playoff format were heavily criticised. And Logano being its biggest beneficiary added to the hate he receives.
“I assumed, when we just get the poll here today, ‘It was all gifted to him again,’ I know that is coming,” Logano said about his Bristol Pole. “I could just see those comments coming our way. And it doesn’t matter. In my mind, I’m like, OK, sure. It rained out, and it worked out in our favor. But we also won last week. And that’s why we had the metric work in our favor. It’s earned. We knew the rules when we started the season. Again, everybody knows the rules. Strategize the best way you can. That doesn’t make me a villain in any way.”
But the villain tag has little to do with this season and a lot more to do with his first season as a Team Penske driver in the Cup Series. In 2013, Logano was involved in two major incidents with Denny Hamlin. In Bristol, Logano collided with Hamlin, and it ended in a post-race confrontation, after which Hamlin called Logano a “piece of trash human.”
A week later, things boiled over with Logano and Hamlin fighting for the win on the final lap at Auto Club Speedway, and the Ford and Toyota collided. The collision sent Hamlin hard into the outside wall, fracturing his vertebra and sidelining him for weeks. That incident was a tipping point, turning the entire garage against the Penske driver.
Logano would end up in a confrontation with Tony Stewart, who felt like Logano threw an aggressive block on the late race restart in the same race. Stewart confronted Logano, and the Penske driver threw a bottle at Stewart.
“He’s nothing but a little rich kid who has never had to work in his life,” said Stewart after the race. “He’s going to learn from us working guys that had to work our way up how it works.”
That comment from Stewart is the perfect segue into another reason that Logano gets hate from fans. Logano’s father was a highly successful waste-management entrepreneur and invested heavily in Joey’s career. Even moving the family from Connecticut to Georgia to provide his son with better racing opportunities.
NASCAR fans and drivers mostly belong to blue-collar working families, and most of the drivers have a struggle story en route to their Cup seats. That is a point on which fans cannot relate to Logano, adding another layer to why they don’t like him.
But Logano is rather unbothered. He’s chasing his fourth title, and he already has his tagline ready: “Four the Haters.” That is what he said after winning in Bristol, and that is his motto. For Logano, this title run is for all of his haters and all those who have doubted him and believed that the Chase format would expose Logano’s championship caliber.