Joey Logano says he celebrated Bristol dirt race win by chopping things with his gladiator sword trophy
"It kind of feels good to just to chop stuff with a sword."
Depending on the race track, NASCAR winners receive a wild variety of unique and fun trophies. Among them, Sonoma Raceway offers a big wine goblet, New Hampshire Motor Speedway winners are handed gigantic lobsters and Martinsville Speedway gives away coveted grandfather clocks.
And Bristol Motor Speedway — where the NASCAR Cup Series held its first dirt race since 1970 on Monday — presents the winner with a massive gladiator sword in Victory Lane at the track nicknamed “The Last Great Colosseum.”
Joey Logano won the seventh race of the season Monday, and it marked his third Bristol win — and the first on dirt, obviously. So Logano now has three gladiator swords, which could be a little dangerous.
When fellow driver Corey LaJoie had Logano on his podcast, Stacking Pennies, on Tuesday, he asked the No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver what he does with all those gladiator swords.
“The first thing you do is you keep ’em away from your kids — that’s the first thing,” Logano joked, specifically referencing his 3-year-old son, rather than his nearly 1-year-old son, Jameson. “I don’t need Hudson running around with a sword.”
Logano then went on to explain he had some fun with the trophy before jumping on LaJoie’s podcast and made some ridiculous videos of him swinging that sword around. He said:
“So I was trimming the hedges. I cut through a Coca-Cola bottle. I was going after it with gusto. But it kind of feels good too just to chop stuff with a sword. It was neat, so that was cool.”
On the podcast, Logano also shared what it was like to celebrate his first win of 2021 with his family (sans Jameson, who Logano said didn’t make the trip to Bristol). He explained how special it was to celebrate his victory on the converted dirt track, particularly with Hudson, along with his wife:
“Brittany and Hudson were there in the motorhome lot, and they can’t come into Victory Lane with the bubble and all that, which kind of stinks. But after everybody left, we stayed late last night because Hudson’s now three and he understands what’s going on.
“The last time I won when he was at the race track, I think, was Miami when we won the championship [in 2018], so it’s been a while since he’s been at the race track for a win. And now that he knows what’s going on, I said, ‘We gotta get him inside the race track.’ And so later that night once everybody left, we went inside and walked the track together and took some cool pictures on the dirt track at Bristol and just thought it was a cool moment.”
Like we said, NASCAR has a lot of cool and weird trophies, but since we’re all about Bristol’s gladiator sword, here are a few more photos of drivers celebrating their checkered flags at the legendary short track.
Denny Hamlin at Bristol in 2019. (Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
Kyle Busch at Bristol in 2018. (Michael Shroyer-USA TODAY Sports)
Jimmie Johnson at Bristol in 2017. (Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)