Prior to the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, only nine drivers had won three or more NASCAR Cup Series championships in the sport’s 75-year history.
Not surprisingly, those drivers are a who’s who among NASCAR royalty: Richard Petty (7 championships), Dale Earnhardt (7), Jimmie Johnson (7), Jeff Gordon (4), Tony Stewart (3), Cale Yarborough (3), Darrell Waltrip (3), David Pearson (3) and Lee Petty (3).
Add one more name — Joey Logano — to the list of three-timers on the heels of a drama-filled 2024 season that culminated in Logano making an unlikely return to the NASCAR throne. Unlikely because Logano scored just a single victory in the regular season (at Nashville Superspeedway on the last day of June) before catching fire in the playoffs and ripping off three victories over the final 10-week stretch.
Now that the Team Penske wheelman is part of the elite fraternity of three-time champs, it begs the question: Is Joey Logano one of the NASCAR Cup Series’ best of all time?
Logano’s Standing Among His Peers Counts for a Lot And Shouldn’t Be Overlooked
In capturing the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series title with a victory in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway, Logano didn’t just fly into the rarefied air inhabited by drivers with three or more Cup Series championships. He also became the only current Cup Series driver to own a trio of championships. Coming into this past season, Logano and longtime rival Kyle Busch led all other drivers with two titles apiece. Other top-tier talents — such as Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney — have ascended NASCAR’s highest mountain just once.
The simple fact that the driver whom Mark Martin once dubbed “Sliced Bread” stands alone as the one active driver with three titles in the sport’s top division makes him worthy of being in the discussion about the greatest to ever strap into the seat of a full-bodied stock car.
Keep in mind, too, that Logano has collected his three championship trophies over a short span of just seven years, beginning in 2018. That’s an impressive run any way you, well, “slice” it.
If Logano Isn’t Already a Legend, He Certainly Looks Like One in the Making
At just 34 years old, Logano is arguably in the prime of his career and will likely be at or near the top of his game for at least another seven to 10 years. Considering Logano got off to a bit of a slow start in the NASCAR Cup Series, winning just three times from his rookie season of 2009 through 2013, the Middletown, Connecticut, native could conceivably retire with as many as six or seven championships. Seventy-five or more career wins also seem within reach (he currently owns 36 at NASCAR’s highest level, including a Daytona 500 in 2015).
If Logano’s next 10 years are on par with his last 10, he’ll be in the hunt to tie Petty, Earnhardt and Johnson as the NASCAR Cup Series’ only seven-time champions. He’ll also likely have a shot to get as high as fourth on the all-time win list. Petty, of course, and his record 200 Cup Series triumphs will never be matched. The same is likely true for Pearson at 105 wins and Gordon at 93.
But if Logano maintains the trajectory he’s been on since 2014 — his first multi-win season — he’ll potentially catch or pass Johnson and Yarborough (83 victories apiece), along with Waltrip (84) and Bobby Allison (85).
That sounds an awful lot like a driver who, if not already one of NASCAR’s best ever, is well on his way to becoming one.
