Winning again at his home track – New Hampshire Motor Speedway – remains high on the priority list for Joey Logano.
The Team Penske driver scored his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory at New Hampshire back in 2009 and followed that up with another victory five years later. That win remains a highlight for the Connecticut native and one he’s hoping to replicate in Sunday’s Foxeoods Resort Casino 301.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when we won here in 2014 that, to me, was as big as winning the Daytona 500 – just conquering a track that at the time was my most challenging race track,” Logano said Friday at NHMS. “As a driver I was one of the drivers that didn’t have their head wrapped around it and understand what it takes to go fast, so to be able to conquer at the time the most challenging race track that happened to be your home race track as well, that, to me, was the coolest.
“Winning that race and having my family here and a lot of friends and to celebrate in Victory Lane with. You don’t have that everywhere. I think every driver can say winning at their home track is one of their, if not their biggest win of their career.”
Logano grew up racing in and around the New England area and had his sights set on making it to NASCAR’s top tier. He accomplished that feat – some saying including Logano perhaps a bit too soon as he replaced Tony Stewart with Joe Gibbs Racing – and to this day continues to marvel at where he is in his career.
“Sometimes you may have to change your dream as you go, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to be able to continue that long road to try to get to a championship,” Logano said. “I still think it is cool, though, to be out there. I remember coming here my first time and watching the time it was the Busch North Series and the modifieds and the Cup race and I met Jeff Gordon. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and then you go out there and race against him 10 years later or so.
“It’s crazy to think how quickly that can happen and that it actually did happen because you think out it our sport is one of the hardest sports to make it in because obviously there are only 40 seats out there and not all of them are really good ones, and in the life span of a driver is pretty long. You can race for a long time. You can race into your mid-forties and sometimes even longer, so to be able to break in is really challenging.”
Although Logano has a win this year earlier in the schedule at Talladega and is qualified for the playoffs, like everyone else in the series he is chasing the “Big Three” of Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. The trio have combined to win 14 of the 19 races this season, an accomplishment Logano thinks is nothing short than amazing.
“I’m surprised by it because we haven’t seen this in a long time to where three cars that dominant and being able to win races,” Logano said.
“We just have to be on our game right now to be able to win races and I’m not saying we can’t, we just have to be perfect and it’s not easy – not that it’s ever easy to win a race, but the margin that we’re working with right now isn’t as big as what you see those top three cars at that are able to be consistently fast even if they’re car may not be quite perfect.”
