Overlooked Joey Logano making case as championship favorite

With the dawn of the Chase for the Sprint Cup just weeks away, if you were to craft a list of prohibitive championships favorites two immediately standout.

Of course, you’d have to include defending series champion Kevin Harvick, who’s exhibited the same high-level consistency used to win the 2014 title. Beginning with seven finishes of second or better in the first nine races, he’s been on an unrelenting pace to surpass Jeff Gordon’s modern era season record of 30 top-10s.

Then there is Kyle Busch, who despite missing 11 starts with leg injuries sustained during a February Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway, owns four wins and came within a half a lap of registering another two weeks ago at Pocono Raceway.

That Busch is competing, let alone winning, is a remarkable considering he’s doing so with pins still holding his surgically repaired left foot together and broken right leg still requiring rehabilitation.

Yet while he isn’t defending a championship nor staging an inspiring comeback from injury, Joey Logano’s credentials make him every bit deserving to be heralded alongside Harvick and Busch as a title contender.

In a continuation of last season, when he emerged as a weekly force, winning five races -- the same as Harvick -- and advancing all the to the Chase championship round, Logano again has the identical number of victories as Harvick (two), just two fewer top-fives (15 to 13) and an average finish a mere 1.5 spots higher -- and 3.5 positions better than Busch, who has competed in half as many races.

Any assumptions that Logano’s 2014 was an aberration have been soundly dispelled. If anything, it’s looking like last season was the first of what will be many where the 25-year-old is battling for the championship yearly.

“We’ve got more top fives, top 10s, more poles, same number of wins we had at this point last year,” Logano’s crew chief Todd Gordon said. “I think team chemistry and continuity is at a level that we’ve not been at. We continue to grow that and we’re knocking on the door. We’re building momentum at the right time.”

Further evidence of Logano’s ability came Sunday at Watkins Glen. The win was his first on a road course, which along with his season-opening Daytona 500 triumph, gives him career victories on every style of venue the Sprint Cup schedule encompasses -- restrictor-plate tracks, intermediate-sized speedways, short ovals and road courses.

It’s a distinction not many can claim. Among those still with holes on their résumés in some fashion are Denny Hamlin (road course), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (road course), Kasey Kahne (plate track), Matt Kenseth (road course), Kurt Busch (plate track) and Brad Keselowski (road course), Logano’s Team Penske teammate.

“Something I think I’m very proud of is that this team has won at short tracks like Bristol and mile-and-a-halfs like Texas and superspeedways earlier this year in Daytona, and now a road course,” Logano said. “We’re a well-rounded team. And I’m proud to be a part of that because not only as a driver does it take a lot of different things, but as a team it takes a completely different attitude every time you go to a different racetrack like that.”

If it feels like Logano is overlooked, it’s because to some degree, he is. Not outspoken or with propensity to engage in on-track feuds such as Keselowski, Logano--whose perpetually smile is often the butt of good-natured ribbing within the garage--prefers staying out of the limelight on race weekends, instead watching Boy Meets World reruns inside the motorcoach.

When Logano was with Joe Gibbs Racing, he had to exist in the shadow of the man he replaced as the driver of the No. 20 car, Tony Stewart. It was a role Logano, then just teenager, wasn’t prepared for and not made any easier when success was fleeting while teammates Kyle Busch and Hamlin regularly racked up wins.

And though he has a Daytona 500 victory to his name, Logano isn’t even Penske’s main star thanks to Keselowski’s 2012 championship and loquacious nature. In the grand scheme, however, that means little and hasn’t prevented Logano from establishing himself as driver capable of winning a Cup title.

“Joey is on the path to winning the Sprint Cup Championship,” Keselowski said during a teleconference Tuesday. “He’ll win one over the next few years for Team Penske. I think Roger knows that, everybody knows that, everybody’s feeling that right now with his performance. So he has a lot to look forward to in his career.”

That much is obvious. What’s left unresolved is if Logano’s first championship will come this season and if it’s one of many.