May 11, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Implied threat might be William Byron's best revenge on Joey Logano

It’s fitting that the NASCAR Cup Series is rolling into Kansas Speedway this weekend, the track where Joey Logano gave away the 2015 championship.

That year was Logano’s banner season. Since 2015, he’s never matched the six wins, six poles, 1,431 laps lead or average finish of 9.2.

But earning that fifth of six wins—after dumping Matt Kenseth with six laps remaining in the contest—came with a price. Two weeks later at Martinsville, Kenseth pile-drove Logano into the Turn 1 wall. Logano was leading at the time. He had led the most laps. But after finishing 37th, the team that scored the most wins and most poles that season failed to advance to the Championship 4. 

And now, Logano has one coming again. After dumping William Byron at Darlington Raceway on Sunday—regardless of the reason Logano used to justify his action—whenever the No. 24  Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is behind the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, Smoking Joe needs to be minding his rearview mirror. 

The tale of the video tape of the final restart shows that Byron indeed crowded Logano into the Turn 2 wall. Byron’s move was not the first of that nature where Logano is concerned. Kyle Busch made a similar shift to get the lead from Logano in Turn 1 on Lap 60.

“Tell him he’s got one coming,” Logano told his spotter, Coleman Pressley. 

That was 200 laps earlier. Logano was already hot. Believe him when he says, “I'm a very angry driver, and I think anyone in the field would probably agree.”

There are two sides to Joey Logano. While he can be quite generous outside of the race car, once that helmet goes on, it’s game on.

Kenseth was just one in a long list of drivers with whom Logano has had run-ins over the past 14 years. He and Kevin Harvick had their moments in 2010. The Pocono Raceway post-race quote, “It’s probably not his fault, his wife wears the firesuit in the family,” was one of Logano’s best verbal jabs of all time after Harvick sent him into the spin cycle. 

When Logano punted the No. 11 car at Auto Club Speedway in 2013, Denny Hamlin ended up in the hospital. In 2017, Logano slid up into Kyle Busch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway—Rowdy’s home track. Busch was so furious that he tracked down his rival after the race and punched him in the face.

In 2018 at Martinsville, Logano bumped Martin Truex Jr. out of the way on the final lap to win, after Truex had made a clean pass for the lead a lap earlier. The victory guaranteed Logano a place in the Championship 4 race at Phoenix.
"He may have won the battle, but he ain't going to win the damn war," Truex asserted after the race.

But Truex was unable to prevent Logano from winning NASCAR Cup title that year. 

Neither threats nor overt actions like Kenseth's have deterred Logano, who has shown over the years that he’s not afraid to get aggressive with more seasoned and accomplished drivers than Byron.

“If someone is going to be willing to do that to you, well, the gloves are off at that point,” Logano said on Sunday. “I knew if I got back there what I was going to do and what I had to do. That was the way he wanted to race, so I said,' let's go.' 

“If he passed me clean, it wouldn't have looked like that. But that was the situation that was there in front of me, and fortunately, I was able to get back there, and he obviously knew it was coming. He checked up into the corner pretty early, so he obviously knew it was coming.

“But you know, I did what I had to do. Had to win the race. It was very important to win and get into the Playoffs, obviously, and what everything means to winning here. Like I said, all those things go into the equation of making the decision.”

Certainly, the complexion of Cup racing has changed. In the first 12 races of 2022, only three have been won by drivers over 30, including Logano, who turns 32 later this month. Hamlin, 41, and Busch, 37, are the other two. 

Byron, 24, and Ross Chastain, 29, both have two wins. All of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers—all of whom are under 30—have won.  As competitive as Logano has been in the past, Team Penske is currently a step behind Hendrick. 

Whether Byron exacts payback on Logano or not, and he should or forever carry the impression of being a doormat, the implied threat alone should be enough. Sometimes taking up real estate in someone’s head is the best form of revenge.