Why will Joey Logano drive No. 48 car at Watkins Glen?

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

Joey Logano will drive the No. 48 car at Watkins Glen next week.

OK, so it's not that No. 48 car. But when Penske Racing president Tim Cindric tweeted this week that Logano would drive a No. 48 car in the Watkins Glen Nationwide Series race, it certainly raised some eyebrows.

The No. 48, of course, is Jimmie Johnson's five-time championship ride in the Sprint Cup Series.

Logano even joked about the number on a Wednesday teleconference and said he'd call crew chief Todd Gordon by a different name that week.

"I said, 'Well, I'm just going to call him 'Chad,' and he can call me 'Jimmie,' '" Logano said. "I think if I don't win in the 48 car, we've got an issue."

So why did Penske choose to run a No. 48 car when it could have picked a different number? Because the selection wasn't that great, spokesman Jonathan Gibson told USA TODAY Sports.

"It's really as simple as there aren't many numbers available; 48 was the best available number," he said.

The car will be sponsored by Discount Tire (which is a regular Penske sponsor) and will have the same paint scheme as always. Penske will field three cars in the race -- Logano, Brad Keselowski (No. 22) and series regular Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 12).

As for Logano's Cup ride, his No. 22 car could use some of the 48 team's magic.

Logano was 19th in points after the Darlington race in May, but then reeled off six straight finishes of 11th or better. Just like that, Logano moved up to 10th in the standings.

But as soon as Logano began to look like a Chase contender, he suffered back-to-back 40th-place finishes at Daytona and New Hampshire and tumbled all the way back to 18th. He remained in that position after Sunday despite an eighth-place run at Indianapolis.

Logano, currently 35 points behind 10th-place Jeff Gordon, said he believes his team can still make the Chase via the top 10 and not a wild card spot. There are six races remaining until the cutoff at Richmond.

"We did this already once coming from more than 35 points back and brought ourselves into the top 10 in a shorter amount of time than we've got now," he said.

But Logano also said the team is "one bad race away" from having to be in the win-or-nothing category when it comes to strategic gambles during races.

"We can't quite do that yet, but we're really, really close," he said.

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck