Joey Logano praises NASCAR for "stepping out of our comfort zone"

As NASCAR takes on Mexico City this weekend, three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano spent a few minutes speaking exclusively with Motorsport.com’s Luis Ramírez in preparation for the event.

Despite failing to win at any road course race in roughly a decade, the Team Penske driver is looking forward to this weekend’s unique race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The event also presents several unknowns as it’s a track most drivers in the field have never seen before — and Cup cars have never raced here until now.

“We’ll have to wait and see … It’s obviously a lot of unique things, a lot of new things, for all of us to try and figure out and overcome,” said Logano. “You know, not just the race track being new, but all of us being south of the border for us is very new here in Mexico. It’s amazing the whole sport moved like this. Like, how many trucks have come down here and set up our race for everyone here in Mexico? It’s really exciting. It’s pretty impressive, to see it all come together, too.

“This has obviously been a lot of work for everyone at NASCAR. The teams, the truck drivers all had to put a lot into this. It’s going to be a great event. I’m excited about that. And like you said, we gotta figure out the race itself.”

Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford

Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images

It may sound unbelievable, but this weekend is the first time in 67 years that NASCAR has held a points-paying Cup race outside of the United States. Though a handful of exhibition races were held in Japan and Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, this might be a real turning point.

Officials have indicated that Mexico could be the beginning of some real international expansion by the top level of the sport, but how does the reigning champion feel about more races beyond the USA?

“I think this definitely is stepping out of our comfort zone and when you do that, you usually grow and see other opportunities that come along with that so I think this is a good start,” said Logano. “Lord knows where we go from here. I don’t know. I think if this is a great success — and it seems so far it has been going very well — but if this can be successful, then yeah, we can pick up and move to some different places. Mexico made good sense to be able to do this. The fans are very excited about us being here. You can drive the trucks here. You start going to other countries, you got to start figuring out how to fly things or put them on boats and that changes the game again. So this is a good step in the right direction.

No road course ace

Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford

Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images

As mentioned, Logano doesn’t have the best record at road courses. Only one of his 37 Cup wins came at a road course, and that was Watkins Glen back in 2015. Nonetheless, Logano is one of the most successful drivers in the sport and is the only active driver with more than two titles, so why has it been so hard for him to adjust to road course racing?

“That’s a great question,” laughed Logano. “If I knew the answer, I would have done it by now. Just, I think road course races — I grew up racing short track ovals. That’s what my roots are so you feel at home doing that. The road courses…I feel more and more comfortable as we do them more in NASCAR these days, but yeah, I just think it takes a lot of things to all come together.”

Threat of rain

NASCAR Mexico City race logo

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

And if attempting to learn to a new road course wasn’t difficult enough, Logano and the other 36 Cup drivers in the field will likely have to deal with some rain showers as well.

“Everything else is different, might as well add some water to the equation,” said Logano in response to the questionable weather forecast. “But it’ll be fine. Hopefully, it doesn’t pour. We’ll race out there in wet conditions, but I don’t think we’re gonna be out there in rainy conditions. Hopefully, the weather holds off enough to where it’s just a little shower and we can go out there and race.”

The NASCAR Cup Series has six sets of wet-weather tires on hand (per team) and has even experimented with racing on damp ovals in recent years, in addition to road course races.