Joey Logano outlines plan for NASCAR Cup Series championship defense

As he looks to mount a NASCAR Cup Series championship defense, Joey Logano is preparing for an entirely new season. He’s had to do his best to flush the memories of last season’s thrilling title win.

Harping on last year’s win won’t do him much good, he explained.

And he fully intends to compete for the championship yet again in 2025, knowing he’s fully capable of winning it all and becoming NASCAR’s first repeat champion since Jimmie Johnson back in 2009 and 2010.

“Well I mean the bottom line is that the goal never changes. The goal is to win the championship, whether you won last year or not,” Joey Logano told the FOX Sports broadcasting crew ahead of the race at Bowman Gray. “But the big thing is just fighting complacency and being OK with what happened.

“You’ve got to remember what you did last year will not be good enough to win this year. So just always constantly looking for improvement and keeping everybody on their game, right, because that’s over. As great as that moment was — and it’s fun to watch it, believe me, it’s really fun just to watch that — it’s over and we’ve got to do it all again. The scoreboards reset back to zero.”

As he begins his title defense, Joey Logano will take part in the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray. He’s been a menace on new tracks in recent years.

FOX Sports pointed out he was a winner at Bristol Dirt in 2021, the Clash at the Coliseum in 2022 and St. Louis in 2022 — all first-time tracks on the circuit.

So what edge does he carry into new tracks? Joey Logano explained.

“I mean you said it, I think it’s a little bit of everything,” Logano said. “I think Paul (Wolfe) does a great job, our engineers do a good job at anticipating some of the things we may fight when we get to these tracks. A lot of that is just kind of going off old-school racing experience of ‘I think we’re going to fight something like this.’ Then you’ve got to adapt quickly.

“You’ve got to get on the racetrack, figure out where the fast lanes are, figure out on restarts what lane’s going to be the best. These days there’s so much data and stuff to go over after races that we know what lane’s going to be the one that moves forward. We know all that stuff. But the first time you don’t. And so I think Coleman (Pressley) up on the roof does a great job at feeding me information to make sure we do the right things as far as racing on the track, as well.”

The Cook Out Clash starring Joey Logano is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday with a broadcast on FOX.