Day after day — on Twitter, on radio, on television — various people are questioning the likelihood of Joey Logano making NASCAR’s 2017 playoffs.
Yes, it’s been an uncharacteristically perplexing summer for the 18-time race winner and annual championship contender. But he is just that — a race winner and sure-bet title contender — and will be again this season despite the short memories and pessimism some are displaying toward this great talent and his top-tier team.
Logano has seven races remaining to assure his place to challenge for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. Count on it.
“We were in a spot two times last year in the playoffs where we needed to win and we can do it again this year to get in,” Logano reminded and assured on Twitter this week.
Like a lot of people, Logano must be shaking his head. It’s been a wacky 2017.
There have been long shots, surprises and say-what trophy hoists.
At times it’s felt like a season of alternate reality, but that’s only made the playoff field more interesting — Logano’s path to a championship chance more intense.
After Kurt Busch’s single-lap-led Daytona 500 win, it took the always contending Stewart-Haas Racing team until late June — on a road course, no less — to score another victory, Kevin Harvick’s well-earned win at Sonoma.
Jimmie Johnson is the only 2017 winner at Hendrick Motorsports — the reigning and seven-time Cup champion’s three wins (at Texas, Bristol and Dover) are his only top fives of the season.
And Denny Hamlin braved a lobster nuzzle at New Hampshire on Sunday to pick up Joe Gibbs Racing’s first win of the year — in Week 19.
It’s been an unpredictable season, to say the least.
Three race winners — Busch, Ryan Newman, and Austin Dillon — didn’t combine to lead 10 laps total in their respective victories at Daytona, Phoenix and Charlotte.
Logano’s No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford has led 257 laps and been out front in 10 of the 19 races.
The problem is, he has led only 17 laps since his April 30 win at Richmond was ruled “encumbered” and not an automatic playoff-qualifying victory. Since that time he’s had a mojo-crushing four finishes of 32nd or worse (three because of crashes) and only two top 10s.
This is where the “but” comes in.
But, Logano and his Team Penske team are going to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for this week’s Brickyard 400, where that team and that track go together like black and white squares on a waving flag.
There is always a reasonable possibility that one of the team’s cars wins at the venue where Roger Penske has a record 16 Indy 500 wins.
Beyond Indianapolis, Logano has established a very nice track record of his own.
He has wins at five of the remaining six regular-season tracks after Indy. He’s hoisted trophies at Watkins Glen, Michigan (twice), Pocono, Bristol (twice) and Richmond (twice). And both his wins at Michigan came from the pole position.
Logano is currently ranked 13th in the points standings — 44 points above the 16th-place cutoff position for the playoffs. Race winners Busch, Stenhouse, Newman and Dillon are currently ranked below Logano but would catapult over him should he not secure a win by the Sept. 11 Richmond regular-season finale.
“This race team knows how to do this,” Logano said Sunday, after his heartbreaking 37th-place finish at New Hampshire. “All of Team Penske knows how to win races and make cars fast. They do it in a bunch of different series and have been doing it over here for years.
“We have to stay together. Stay as a team. Keep pushing. If it happens, it happens. Hopefully, we can get some speed enough to squeak a win out before the playoffs and get our 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford into the playoffs.”
The situation has unquestionably put pressure on Logano, who has more typically celebrated in Victory Lane before the Fall, before the panic. And it’s all made 2017 a little more suspenseful.
But, Logano is a sure thing.