Talking to “Sliced Bread” Star Joey Logano

Right now we’re in the midst of the final Sprint Cup practice known as “happy hour” – the last chance for teams to work on their cars and get a feel before tomorrow’s race. Dale Earnhardt, Jr., is having handling issues and the fastest guy out there is Dale’s former teammate Martin Truex, Jr., who spent an awful lot of time racing on New Hampshire tracks when he was growing up in New England.

Part of my job today was to pit report for the Nationwide Series qualifying, which means I was interviewing drivers as they were waiting to roll out and get their qualifying lap on the track. The fastest driver there was another local guy, Joey Logano.

Logano, Gibbs’ newest driver, is the guy that was labeled “sliced bread” before the start of the season. He replaced Tony Stewart. It was a big decision to move him up so fast – it would be like an intern being told that they were going to permanently take the place of NBC’s Brian Williams and Logano’s basically been thrown into the fire as far as the Cup series is concerned – but lately, he has been managing more consistency with a handful of top 10 finishes.

When I flew in here Thursday, I went to a Home Depot to do an interview with Joey and his crew chief Greg Zipadelli. (Home Depot is Joey’s sponsor, so they were doing an appearance there.) We sat down and I asked them about the relationship and how it’s been for Zippy to go from Tony – about his age – to Joey, a rookie 17 years younger. We also talked about their goals moving forward.

What struck me was the way they seem to compliment each other. Joey is such a talented driver and it hit me that Zippy now has a very cool opportunity, because after the learning curve lessons, he’s got a driver that has enough talent to rival the best.

The other thing is that the timing of Logano’s entrance is unique. Think about it: fans that start to follow him now are basically younger. They don’t necessarily have the same allegiance to the deep roots of NASCAR like the true Earnhardt, Sr., fans, so Logano doesn’t exactly rival Dale Jr. for a fan base. It’s going to be fun to watch Logano get more time under his belt in this series.

Anyway, a bonus at the event was that we got to make wooden race cars – we had to build them in a woodshop class and even race them down a chute like we were at a pine wood derby. I lost, but I laughed out loud when Joey Logano put the hammer down, looked over at me and said, “Would you be mad if I raced your car and won?”