DAYTONA BEACH — Each year at this time, some cars arrive at Daytona sporting different sponsors and therefore new color schemes. Same with haulers, team uniforms and anything else associated with the various racing organizations.
Rarely, however, do the stars of the show arrive with a noticeably different look than they had at the end of the previous season.
Geoff Bodine showed up at Daytona one year with a beard, another year with a small diamond stud in his ear lobe. And he may or may not have shown up with Tanya Tucker at some point.
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Twenty years ago, Kurt Busch arrived for the Daytona 500 with his ears pinned back — and not figuratively. He had offseason surgery to tuck his ears a bit closer to his head.
And now we have Joey Logano, who’s gone full John Travolta on us and embraced the razor for something other than his facial stubble.
“I gave my son the clippers and said, ‘Have at it,’” Logano said of his biggest offseason move.
Yes, Joey Logano is OK. He’s just bald
Turns out, there was a little more involved than just a whim.
“I have alopecia and I randomly get these spots where the hair won’t grow,” Logano explained during Wednesday’s media day festivities at Daytona. “I had another flare-up and just said, shoot, let’s shave it off.
“I’d thought about it, then I had another flare-up and said, this is the easiest thing to do.”
And that was that, until pictures appeared on social media.
“I started getting a lot of messages from people asking if I was OK,” he laughed.
The head is clean, but he is sporting a small, fresh beard.
“My wife said I still need to do that, and I said, ‘whatever you want.’”
Two chairs, no waiting. Next up: Chase Briscoe
It might not be long before Logano has company in the Lack of Hair Club for Men. Chase Briscoe, follicly challenged and admittedly so, says don’t be surprised to see him show up some random week missing the “few hundred hairs I have.”
“I might do it during the offseason. I might show up one week this summer with it all cut off, but it’s going to happen at some point, I can assure you,” Briscoe said Wednesday.
As Briscoe started winning and contending for wins more often last year, the TV cameras started finding him more often at his most vulnerable — during the national anthem, when drivers are standing alongside their cars and hatless.
“I have social media in an uproar normally every single week because TV shows me during the national anthem and people roast me for how bad my hair is — or lack of hair,” he said.
When is 2026 Daytona 500?
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Bald Joey Logano at Daytona 500 with new ‘Hair-o-dynamic’ advantage
Reporting by Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
