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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Joey Logano has a easy goal for the longer term whilst he celebrates his 2022 NASCAR Cup championship.
Add one more.
Logano this season joined Kyle Busch as the one lively NASCAR drivers with a number of Cup collection titles, including to the primary Cup championship he gained in 2018. Being the one lively driver with three Cup titles can be even sweeter.
“That’s the place my head is at proper is, ‘Let’s go get one other one,’” Logano stated Thursday earlier than he was feted at NASCAR’s annual awards ceremony.
“It’s one thing particular although for positive. Successful championships is tough in skilled sports activities, proper? That is so arduous to return by, and so arduous to do, and all the things has to return collectively on the proper time,” he continued. “It’s not simply the driving force, but it surely’s the staff, the vehicles. All the pieces must be clicking on the proper time to have the ability to do it.”
Logano, at 32, was already the oldest of the 4 drivers within the championship finale. Credit score— or blame — the brand new Subsequent Gen automotive for night out competitors to the place the Cup Sequence had 19 completely different winners, with 5 first-timers and two drivers making their first look within the championship race.
Logano gained his second NASCAR championship by ending first in a winner-take-all finale at Phoenix Raceway, giving Staff Penske each the Cup and IndyCar titles in the identical season for the primary time in 31 tries.
Roger Penske, proprietor of Logano’s No. 22 Ford, is aware of how hungry Logano is to win a 3rd title. He is a part of a roster that features Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric, who each made the playoffs with Staff Penske, and Harrison Burton in an affiliate Wooden Brothers Racing automotive.
“We’ve obtained the identical staff, so we must always,” Penske stated. “We must always be capable of compete now. A variety of nice expertise on the market right now. New expertise, younger expertise. Groups and the vehicles introduced us nearer collectively. However I feel we’re somebody you’re going to should beat in ’23.”
The fast celebration of his second Cup championship was a bit muted for Logano with the dying of Joe Gibbs Racing vice chairman Coy Gibbs hours earlier than that season finale. Logano started his career at JGR, the place he spent 4 Cup seasons.
Coming to the NASCAR awards in Nashville allowed Logano time and house to actually get pleasure from his newest championship.
He posed with the trophy on a bridge over the Cumberland River and advised a go to to the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, the place Logano visited with two-time dashing champ Derrick Henry and swapped his helmet for a No. 22 Henry jersey. He additionally obtained to spend time on the staff’s follow subject.
Logano stated he loves selecting up ideas and concepts on how different folks on the high of their sports activities work to remain there as a result of he is discovered that no person, even in the identical sport, sees or approaches issues the identical method.
“So it’s good to study all that for positive,” Logano stated.
Logano additionally is aware of he is amongst considered one of NASCAR’s older present drivers and desires to embrace being extra of a frontrunner and assist develop the game. He is nonetheless younger sufficient to narrate to all of the younger drivers coming into NASCAR, but sufficiently old to recollect what it was like over a decade in the past.
“I really feel like that’s an enormous duty for all of us as an business to care in regards to the subsequent era of our sport,” Logano stated.
Kevin Harvick, the 2014 Cup champion, stated Logano would not give himself sufficient credit score for being a frontrunner within the sport already.
“He has a voice that he makes use of and participates in loads of the actions and issues that it takes to assist us progress ahead,” stated Harvick, the 2014 champion who as soon as feuded with Logano. “It has been an fascinating 12 months to know the place all the things is at, and I am responsible of it as properly and never taking part in doing the issues that we have to do.”
As Logano prepares to chase his third championship, Busch wore his two huge championship rings as a result of the NASCAR awards supply an ideal alternative to flaunt what he is earned. Busch identified he cannot put on them when he is getting right into a race automotive.
“I would as properly put on (them) once we come to the capabilities in which you’ll present folks what they’re going after anyway,” Busch stated.
Busch already has cleared out his gear from Joe Gibbs Racing after 15 years as he switches to Richard Childress Racing for the upcoming season. He admitted displaying off the spoils of victory may supply motivation that works towards him sooner or later.
“You realize we’d like to get extra,” Busch stated.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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