When Joey Logano takes the green flag Sunday for the 2020 Daytona 500, he’ll start his 400th race in the NASCAR Cup Series. He’ll start the race from the third position after winning the first Bluegreen Vacations Duel at Daytona on Thursday night.
“I am proud to be driving that ‘Blue Oval’ and these Roush Yates motors. We are ready to rock and roll. I can’t wait for the 500,” Logano said after his Duel win.
Logano has been driver of the #22 Team Penske Ford since the 2013 season when 2012 champion Brad Keselowski suggested team owner Roger Penske put Logano in the #22 car. The 2020 season will be Logano’s ninth at Team Penske but his first with Paul Wolfe as crew chief.
Todd Gordon was Logano’s crew chief for the last eight seasons, but the two were separated and Wolfe named Logano’s new crew chief in a crew chief shuffle that included all three of Penske’s Cup Series teams ahead of the start of the season. Logano is only the second driver for which Wolfe has been crew chief in the Cup Series, as he was paired with Keselowski from 2011 through 2019.
“As we do after the completion of each season, we evaluated what we can do to better achieve our goals, and we felt it was time to make these changes to better position us to reach our potential,” Penske said when the changes were announced.
Logano’s previous 399 Cup Series races resulted in 23 wins, including the 2015 Daytona 500. Twenty-one of those wins have come since joining Team Penske; he also won the 2018 Cup Series championship as driver of the #22.
Logano became a full-time Cup Series driver in 2009 when Joe Gibbs promoted him from the Xfinity Series to drive the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing entry in the Cup Series, replacing Tony Stewart, who left JGR to become co-owner and driver at Stewart-Haas Racing.
At JGR, Logano won in his rookie season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and his final season with the team [2012] at Pocono Raceway.
Logano won two races last season and wound up fifth in the 2019 Cup Series driver standings.
