Joey Logano Heads to Dover in a Nationwide Car!

[DebWilliams-GFN]

Joey Logano Heads to Dover in a Nationwide Car!

By Deb Williams

When four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon made his Cup debut at Atlanta in November 1992 hardly anyone noticed. After all, it was Richard Petty's final race and there was a three-way battle for the series title. That, however, won't be the case this Saturday for Joey Logano when he makes his Nationwide Series debut at Dover International Speedway.

One week after celebrating his 18th birthday, Logano is stepping into the most successful ride this season in NASCAR's Nationwide Series – the No. 20 Toyota fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing. Since the season began in February at Daytona, that car number has been guided to victory lane six times by Tony Stewart [4], Kyle Busch [1] and Denny Hamlin [1]. And that team's success only adds to the pressure cooker the Middletown, Conn., native has walked into at an age when most teenagers are celebrating high school graduation and preparing for college.

By the time Logano buckles into his car for Saturday's Heluva Good! 200 on the tough 1-mile, concrete Dover track, not only will the media have chronicled his every step, but GameStop, the world's largest video game retailer, will have assumed its primary sponsorship position on his car.

“It's going to be tough for him,” Hamlin said. “Obviously, he's going to have a ton of pressure getting into that car after the success that it's had.

“We're going to run [Hamlin is driving the No. 18 car], so he's going to have a good gage to go by. From my standpoint, if I'm going to win Dover, I think he's one of the guys I'm going to have to beat. If any other rookie was getting in the car, I wouldn't even consider them a factor.

“The car will carry him a little bit and his talent is good enough to perform just as well. I don't see him going through the rookie pains that you see a lot of drivers go through in the Nationwide Series, other development drivers.”

Logano admitted that traveling to Dover as a Nationwide Series driver would be a “new game for me, but I feel like I'm ready.”

“I've been waiting on this birthday forever.” said the young driver, whose 18th birthday celebration on May 24 included a 150-pound birthday cake that was a replica of the car he'll drive this weekend. “I've done a ton of testing and a ton of races growing up.”

Logano's racing journey began at age 6 in Quarter-Midgets where he earned three championships before advancing to Bandoleros three years later. He immediately won the Summer Shootouts at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Lowe's Motor Speedway to earn another championship.

When Logano advanced into Legend cars, the 12 year old set a track record of 14 consecutive victories at AMS and won the Young Lions National

Championship in 2002. He also claimed the Pro National Championship in 2002, making him the youngest champion in Legends history.

By age 13, Logano had transitioned into Late Model Stock Cars. He competed in the Georgia Late Model Series and the Southern All-Stars, winning three times.

Logano continued to rocket up the racing ladder in 2004, moving into the American Speed Association and competing in the ASA Late Model Series where he earned five top-five and eight top-10 finishes.

JGR spotted the talented youngster and signed him to the organization's driver development program in 2005 when he was 15. Logano made his Hooters Pro Cup Series debut just days after turning 15, and less than a month later, on June 11, he scored his first Hooters Pro Cup victory at Mansfield [Ohio] Motorsports Speedway.

In 2006, Logano won two races and a pole en route to a fifth-place finish in the Hooters Pro Cup's Southern Division standings.

Last year, Logano clinched the 2007 Camping World East championship by simply starting the season-ending race at Dover on Sept. 21. In that race, he led three times for a race-high 79 laps before having to settle for second. His ninth podium finish capped a season that saw him take seven checkered flags – five in Camping World East, one in Camping World West where he made his JGR debut at Phoenix, and in the Oct. 20 NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale, Calif.

Logano's Phoenix victory sparked his NASCAR Camping World East campaign in which he never went more than two consecutive races without a victory.

In early May of this year, Logano made his ARCA/REMAX Series debut at Rockingham [N.C.] Speedway in dominant fashion. In the first race at the 1-mile track since February 2004, Logano drove the tough speedway like a veteran, earning the pole and then leading five times for 257 laps in the 312-lap Carolina 500.

“Joey is magic, take my word for it,” veteran Mark Martin said.

JGR President J.D. Gibbs noted that Logano has a “gift on the race track” and a “unique gift for bringing his guys together.”

“We saw that with some of our guys on the team and that means a lot,” Gibbs continued. “I think what's really neat is the way he interacts with his family, the way they care about each other, love each other and the history that he has being as young as he is. It's not so much an age thing. We think he's ready and we think he has a gift for it.

“When a guy shows that he has a gift, whether he is starting in Midgets or Go-Karts, running Late Models or doing some ARCA or truck races, when you excel in each of those series, odds are that you have a great shot at excelling at the next level. Usually, if a guy's good, then a guy's good right off the bat.

“It was special for us to take Joey out there and kind of work with our East-West guys for a while, do some Pro Cup racing and then when our Cup guys really had some time with him, they were bragging on him and said he was ready now and that was last year.”

Gibbs said JGR would eventually like to have a four-car Cup operation, but the organization had no intention of rushing Logano into NASCAR's top series. They plan to “watch and wait” where the young driver is concerned.

“This year, we're going to do 18 or 19 Nationwide races and probably throw a few ARCA things in there,” Gibbs said. “Eventually, he's going to have a spot in this sport for many years to come in the Cup series. I think we're just going to let him enjoy what he's doing now and kind of grow. I think when the time is right, we'll all be ready to go, but right now, we're going to come out and knock off this part of the year and really focus on just being consistent and getting the seat time at tracks he's never been to before. It's going to take him a little time to get up to speed, but I think when the time is right, we'll all agree that he's ready to go.”

JGR owner Joe Gibbs said he thought Logano had been involved in about 32 tests this year.

“We tried to keep him in everything we could and I think we all feel the same way, that we want to get him in everything we can as fast as we can, but at the same time we want to make sure that we don't put undo pressure on Joey,” the elder Gibbs said.

J.D. Gibbs noted that in racing today, it was off the track where a driver's life becomes extremely difficult due to travel, appearances, and other sponsor obligations.

“We know on the track he'll be fine. We're in no hurry to get him out there in the Cup series,” J.D. Gibbs continued. “Let's just enjoy this Nationwide thing and take it as long as we can and then off the track, make sure we do a good job of making sure that he feels he has fun, which is the key to all this.”

Logano, who has relocated to Concord, N.C., with his parents, realizes there's a tremendous amount of pressure on him due to his car's success with other JGR drivers. However, that doesn't seem to bother the easy-going Logano.

“I would rather be in a car that's winning races and I know can win races rather than a car that's going to run in 25th place,” Logano said. “I would rather run up front than have a good finish being 20th.

“I'm going to race them [other drivers] the way I want to be raced and hopefully, they will do the same thing for me.

“To get that first start at Dover, thank God, finally, it seems like I've been waiting for 18 years.”