NASCAR driver Joey Logano stopped by Texas Motor Speedway on Monday reroute to North Carolina. Sunday he was racing in Las Vegas where he finished 6th.
At the age of 19, Logano has already had 42 starts in the Sprint Cup Series. "That's just unbelievable," says Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage. "He's the real deal. I mean, he really is sliced bread. You can see his progress in his performance, and yet I talk to him and he's just a kid. He's just a little kid."
Logano has been laying the ground work for his career at a very young age. "I've been driving since I was six," Logano says during a TV interview at the ripe old age of 12. "I started in quarter midges, moved up to Bandolero's. Now I’m in Legend's cars and Legacy cars."
He won championships in all of those although the Legends series provided his first real challenge.
"They're really hard to drive," he said in an interview back then. "They've got a lot of power and they don't have too much rubber, which makes them really tough to drive."
Logano represents the future of Sprint Cup racing. It took him just 17 starts to win his first Sprint Cup event. By the end of the 2009 season, Logano was crowned rookie of the year.
"People are always looking for the new latest and greatest thing," he says. "Even if it's not in the sport, it's the new latest and greatest Sprint phone or this and that. It's always something like that."
"That's the cycle of life in any sport," says Nascar President Mike Helton. "If you were a huge Larry Bird fan, well Larry doesn't play anymore so you move on. The same thing happens in our sport."
And right now Logano, who turns 20 on May 24th, is poised to be the next star in NASCAR.
