Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Joey Logano Interview | VICTORY LAP

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

On this week’s ‘Victory Lap,’ Kevin Harvick is joined by Joey Logano following his huge win at Las Vegas Speedway! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on Fox. And on this week's victory lap, we have this week's winner, Joey Legano. And just his crazy story to get himself into the championship four, let alone just get himself back into the championship eight. So hopefully Joey can give us some insight into what his week has been like and what it's going to be like leading into Phoenix. Well, Joey Lagano, round of eight, now round of four. When's the race? and I don't even know where to start to describe all of this. So I guess you explain it to us.

How has this last week been? And now you've won the race and you're going to the championship four. I don't even know how to explain it. So please help us. Yeah, I don't think I can either. To be honest with you, you know, you think about what happened at the end of the robole, you're sitting there and you're in on the owner's championship,

but you're not in the driver. So it's like a bittersweet kind of thing. And you're like, yeah, and you get home and you get this call, like you're back in. I'm like, oh, that's kind of crazy. And I told my wife, I said, man, we don't be crazy. Like, we get in and then what if we go to Vegas and go win that thing? And then we're in the championship for it. Like, we'd spend this whole place upside down. And we did that. Just a wild turn of events. I mean, you know how this sport is. You can go from, you know, to the top to the bottom, back to the top, you know, one day at a time. It's just,

it's unbelievable. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to race for another championship. and when you get locked in before everybody else, it gives you a real advantage. And so we need to take advantage of that and be able to get our car prepared, be more prepared as a driver and as a team when we get to Phoenix. And that does change a lot of how you go to Phoenix

because you have a couple weeks to prepare. When I look back at Phoenix, I would say that the first weekend wasn't what you wanted. So obviously you guys have come a long way since you've you've raced at Phoenix at the first of the year. So I know you'll be a lot better than you wore the first time. But explain to me just the way that these playoffs have gone. And we always see the controversy of things happening and people making mistakes.

But man, it sure does seem like you guys have not made as many mistakes. Because I look at, you know, sixth, eighth place car maybe yesterday. And then I look back at just some of the things that you. you've capitalized on. It sure seems like you guys are beating them off of experience and being smart and doing things correctly and not making mistakes because there are a lot of them, it seems, that the other guys are making right now. Yeah, I mean, and sometimes you can't control all of it. Sometimes you get caught up, but you look at that wreck. There's a few drivers that got caught up and that was like, what are they supposed to do? Wrong place, wrong time. But, you know,

we were in a good position there. And, you know, we had an advantage with Milo. We feel mileage and we're able to take advantage of that. You're right. We were probably anywhere from a fifth to ten place car. And just depending on where you picked us up and put us down. But our long run speed was really, really good. One of the best cars on the long haul. So, you know, when you have a long run like that and fuel mileage is your advantage,

it puts you in a different category where you're able to, you know, execute the race better or different than everybody else. So, you know, you've got to use that when you can. You don't get that opportunity. all the time. And seems like this year we've taken advantage of the fuel mileage stuff a couple times already. So that's good. If that's what we got, let's use it. But definitely a unique race for sure. And even throughout the playoffs, right? And you talked about it. Maybe we didn't have the best regular season, but this is the playout format. And we've been able to execute well throughout

it. So as you as you have these couple extra weeks off, how does this change your routine now? I'm sure that you had a routine in your mind that you're going to go through as you go to homestead and you're going to go and you're going to practice. You're going to run against the wall for hours and hours and hours. I'm sure you'll still do that. But explain to us, explain to the fans, just how that changes everything that you do for Phoenix and a mindset that now shifts in the shop for that championship race. It helps in every department all the way through, not even just the competition stuff. Like this morning, I've been working on logistics. Okay, now we know we're going there and who's going to come and how are we going to get there.

And, you know, all the things with your sponsor showing up and all that. Like now we can actually build out a program of, you know, because we know we're going to be there and it's not going to be last minute. So been handling that some this morning. We're still going to go over Vegas here and as soon as I've done talking to you and making sure that we, you know, write down the things that we did good and bad. And then right after that, it's Phoenix sign. And we'll start talking about that. You know, we will probably go over a little bit of Miami and maybe a little of Martinsville, but those conversations I expect to be fairly short.

And like I said, we earned the opportunity to be looking further ahead than everybody. So we have to do that. That's our opportunity to be better. I think you touched on something that a lot of people overlook right there. And that's the logistics and the people and the planning that goes into an event like, the championship race. Talk to us about just what is different leading into that championship race that you have to prepare yourself mentally for the week, the weekend that is different than every other race. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you know, your car's got to be loaded

up Tuesday-ish to get to Phoenix. So if you're racing in a Martin's zoning, you get in, like, okay, great. You only got a couple of days to get your cars prepared. So you have to be doing that beforehand already just to get your cars ready. But then you have the distraction as a driver that, yeah, you want to work on your car and your setup and what you're going to have for, you know, strategies and how you want to handle practice and qualifying. But then you got to have, you have media day on Tuesday. You have, you know, I don't know what your Wednesday may look like. It's different for our every driver. You got more media stuff on Thursday when we get out there. So there's really not like a lot of time to really focus in.

So the amount of distractions going into the biggest race of your career really can stack up on drivers. So like I said, to be able to start working on that stuff now to where you limit your distractions on race week is really going to help out. Well, that makes a big difference for sure. So if you had to pick today, who are the other three guys your race against, do you think? Oh, man. It's hard to say for sure. I mean, you look at the four that are in right now, and, you know, there's a pretty good points cushion there. But we said it before.

I mean, as far as this round of eight, there's no one in there that shouldn't be in there. Right. And nobody got knocked out that was like, wow, there's a big surprise. We expected that driver to go all the way or they had so many playoff points out. We expect them to go all the way. It's really, in my opinion, eight of the best race teams in the series right now. So everybody that gets in will be definitely well deserved to be in there. And quite honestly, it doesn't matter to me who gets in because we got to go win no matter what.

We got to go do our deal. So we just got to focus on ourselves. So you're not picking is what you're telling me. Well, I guess what I'm saying. Most likely I think the four that are in there are probably the championship four. That's what I think. There we go. I love it.

It's NASCAR. You couldn't call yesterday either. Even with two to go, you still tell you he's going to win the race. I've learned one thing sitting on this side of the chair, Joey, that everything that you think might happen usually doesn't. And it just gets turned upside down and you never know where it's going to go next. It makes it fun to watch. And we appreciate you taking the time.

Congratulations on everything that's happened over the last week and putting yourself in a position to win another championship. Good luck. All right. Thanks, Kevin. make that I'm young. We'll see you.