If you enjoy wagering, you should think twice before making a sizable bet on Joey Logano to win the NASCAR Cup Series again in 2023. There’s little doubt the Team Penske driver will have fast vehicles and a chance to win the championship, but what odds it will happen? The stakes are slim to none. However, Logano hasn’t lost his driving skills, nor has his seasoned crew chief Paul Wolfe lost his ability to call races. No, it’s not like that at all.

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Only one racer, Jimmie Johnson, has captured back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series titles since the start of the century. Nobody has won back-to-back championships since Johnson won the final of his record-breaking five straight victories in 2010; Johnson. Yes, in the past 12 years, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch have won two titles, but they haven’t happened back-to-back, and there’s a good reason for that: It’s because it’s challenging to win a championship in back-to-back seasons. Impossible? No. But tough? Absolutely. It is no surprise, then, that a who’s who of NASCAR’s 74-year history includes people who have Joey Logano has five times been a member of the quartet of championship candidates since NASCAR introduced a season-ending Championship 4 event for its premier series in 2014, but never in back-to-back years.

Consequently, after participating in Championship 4 in 2014, missing it in 2015. Then he returned in 2016 but did not go any further in 2017. Whatever the cause, Logano can’t seem to get past it and qualify for the Championship 4 in back-to-back seasons. This may be just a coincidence, but it’s more likely a reflection of how challenging it is to advance this far in a 16-driver playoff, including drivers, each of whom is there for a reason, they earned it. There is no doubt that Joey has a lot of enemies, and he would be the first to confess as much. Given Logano’s consistent success over a series of seasons and his uncompromising, no holds barred style of racing, which has sometimes put him in the middle of controversy, this is not all that surprising.