Defending a NASCAR Cup Series championship is supposed to come with swagger.
Instead, Joey Logano spent much of the first half of 2026 looking like a guy trying to find his car keys.
The wins disappeared. So did the consistency. Three DNFs, only two top-five finishes and a string of afternoons where the No. 22 Team Penske Ford was simply…there. While Corey Heim became the sport’s hottest story and Toyota stacked victories, the reigning champion was drifting through the season largely unnoticed.
For Joey Logano, unnoticed is an unusual place to be.
Then came North Wilkesboro.
Last weekend, Logano reminded everyone why counting out a champion is usually a terrible idea, cruising to his first victory since Texas in May 2025. It wasn’t just another win. It looked like the Team Penske organization had finally rediscovered whatever had gone missing during the opening months of the season.
One good race can be written off as an outlier.
Two straight weekends near the front? That’s a trend worth watching.
Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway didn’t end with Logano spraying champagne, but it may have been just as encouraging. He finished third after charging from 19th on the starting grid and spent the closing laps chasing race winner Corey Heim and runner-up Christopher Bell. All while holding off Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin.
More importantly, he looked like a contender again.
“We broke up the Toyotas, so that’s good,” Logano said afterward. “But we just couldn’t get there.”
That isn’t the quote of a driver relieved to salvage a decent finish. It’s the comment of someone irritated that third wasn’t first.
That’s the Joey Logano everyone is used to seeing.
He believed his car was capable of winning, but Indianapolis reminded everyone how difficult it can be to pass with the Next Gen car.
“I was faster than them, but I got three car lengths back and that was it,” Logano said. “I lost the air and that was it. I couldn’t go fast anymore. I needed track position.”
In other words, he had the speed. He just couldn’t get close enough to use it.
The bigger issue, Logano admitted, happened before the green flag even waved.
“We’ve just got to qualify better and start towards the front,” he said. “We missed it on Saturday and you start 19th and you get one or two, but everyone ran the same strategy all day, so there wasn’t much opportunity there. We got to where we had a shot at it, but not good enough.”
It’s difficult to argue with that assessment.
Indianapolis has never been a track where drivers casually slice through the field, and Sunday’s strategy race made passing even more difficult. Despite that, Logano clawed his way into contention and left believing the race had slipped away long before the final restart.
Perhaps that’s the biggest takeaway.
A month ago, Team Penske was searching for answers. Now the No. 22 team is disappointed with third place because it believes it should have won.
That’s a dramatic change in attitude.
Championship teams rarely stay down for long. They don’t suddenly forget how to build race cars, and champions don’t suddenly forget how to drive. Sometimes they simply need one breakthrough to remind everyone—including themselves—what they’re capable of.
North Wilkesboro may have been that breakthrough.
Indianapolis looked like confirmation.
The Cup Series has a habit of swinging wildly from one narrative to the next. A rough stretch convinces everyone the champion has lost his edge. Two strong races later, the conversation changes completely.
Nobody is handing Logano another championship after one win and one third-place finish.
But after spending much of 2026 lurking in the background, the reigning champion has finally forced his way back into the spotlight.
And if the last two weekends are any indication, the rest of the garage may have to start worrying about the No. 22 again.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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