The Daytona 500 is a bucket list race for any NASCAR driver.
It kicks off the racing season in Daytona Beach, Florida, and that means this Sunday, we’ll get to see the best of the best back in action behind the wheel again for the 2023 season.
And while most drivers dream their whole lives of securing a Daytona win, Joey Logano doesn’t think it quite means what it’s billed as in terms of skill or driver effort…
He won the race himself in 2015, and is this years reigning NASCAR champion, and he recently sat down with Graham Bensinger to chat about several different topics at his office in North Carolina, notably this week’s race.
He said that while, it is one of the biggest races of the year, it typically turns out to be a big “wreck fest” at the end, with the leaders being taken out and drivers outside of the Top 5 somehow pulling out a last-minute win:
“The Daytona 500, like, it’s one of our big races of the year.
But it’s become such a wreck fest at the end, ‘cuz everyone knows what’s on the line, and we’ll get super super aggressive and there’s always a wreck. And there’s been so many times that I’ve been leading on the last lap, and wreck.
And I get dumped here, I get pushed over here, and never see a checkered flag. And then it’s the guy that’s running like 7th wins the race.”
He added that it’s extremely frustrating, and said it’s even “taken something away” from what it means to win that race for him personally:
“You know, and it’s so frustrating that it ends up that way, to where there’s a lot of times it’s the underdog that wins the Daytona 500, our biggest race of the year.
So it’s always kind of taken something away from the Daytona 500 personally for me, because of that.”
And he went on to say that it’s still one you have to have on your resume to be considered one of the best, though ultimately, championships are all that really matter… and while I definitely agree, that’s a lot easier to say when you’re the current champ:
“But it is definitely a race that you’ve gotta say you won at one point. For championships, that’s what it’s about, that’s what the whole thing is about, winning a championship.
The first one, there’s nothing like your first when it comes to the championship… I remember the whole last five laps, I was shaking in the car…
I knew it was on the line, just hoping that the car made it.”
Something tells me he might be singing a bit of a different tune if he can pull out the W this weekend…
And the front row is officially set now for the 65th running of the Great American Race, with Alex Bowman taking the poll position.
The Daytona 500 will air this Sunday at 2:30 p.m. EST on Fox.
