NASCAR's trip to Martinsville could be a saving grace for Joey Logano

They say laughter is the best medicine, but NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano would much rather have a race at Martinsville Speedway this weekend. 

The two-time Cup Series champion and future Hall of Famer finds himself 16th in the Cup Series standings six races into the 2026 season — a far cry from his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney in second. 

While Ford has struggled as a whole and another Penske driver in Austin Cindric is only 21st in the standings, it's Logano's standing as a former champion and perennial contender that makes his slow start worrying. 

Logano only has one top-10 effort in 2026, a third-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500. His best finish aside from that is a pair of 15th-place results at Circuit of the Americas and Las Vegas, and he already finds himself on the bubble for the provisional 16-driver Chase field, tied with Michael McDowell for the last postseason berth. 

However, Sunday's race at the half-mile Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., could be the shot in the arm Logano and the No. 22 team need. 

Martinsville could be saving grace for Joey Logano

Since he joined Team Penske in 2013, you'd be hard pressed to find a more consistent driver at Martinsville than Logano. 

While his only victory at the track came in the fall of 2018, not since the spring of 2019 has Logano finished outside the top-10 at "The Paperclip." He has 13 consecutive top-10 finishes at the smallest track to host a points-paying race. 

In the Next-Gen era (2022-present) some drivers have struggled to replicate their results at what were their best tracks with NASCAR's new car. But that hasn't mattered to Logano, who was two runner-up finishes at Martinsville in the Next-Gen car and has led 122 laps across eight Next-Gen races at the track. 

In 2025, Logano led 13 laps and finished eighth at Martinsville in the spring before finishing eighth again when the Cup Series returned in the fall. 

Amid a concerning start and under a championship format where one win can no longer act as a Band-Aid fix, a solid run at Martinsville on Sunday could begin to turn the tide for Logano and the No. 22 group as they search for momemtum.