After three days of traveling the country as the winner of the Daytona 500, Joey Logano landed on familiar turf at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he raced on the quarter-mile Legends track as a pre-teen.
Through the years, he’s maintained friendships with the people who watched him race in the beginning.
“I still know all of the security guards because they’re the ones that let me in when I was 10 years old and walk around the garage,” Logano said. “They were my hook-ups back then, and they’re still here, so it’s cool to see them after all that.”
Between Sunday’s race at Daytona and Thursday’s open test session at AMS, Logano made the TV rounds, appearing on “Today” on NBC, “Fox and Friends” on Fox News, “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS, “Morning Express with Robin Meade” on HLN, “SportsCenter” on ESPN and numerous local TV shows.
And when talking with hosts such as Letterman on network TV, he seemed as cool under pressure as he was racing Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick for the win at Daytona.
“It was fun,” Logano said of his TV appearances. “I didn’t really get too nervous. I just tried to be relaxed because the more tensed up you are the worse you do.”
More important for Logano than TV time is getting back in his No. 22 Ford and trying to use the momentum from his biggest career victory to march toward a Sprint Cup championship. Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, the first to be run under new rules for Sprint Cup cars, likely will be a much better indicator than Daytona of who will be fast this season.
“We’ve enjoyed this whole time, but now it’s back to work,” he said. “There are a lot of unknowns coming here to Atlanta. We don’t know what we’re going to have with the new package because we haven’t had a chance to use it yet, so you’re kind of on edge just to see what it’s going to be like and get back in the groove of a normal weekend.
“This is going to be a big test to see where we’re at and to see what we need to work on to get better. All of the stuff that came along with the 500 was fun, but that’s kind of over now and it’s back to work.”
Logano has the luxury of a guaranteed berth in the season-ending Chase for the Sprint Cup since NASCAR has gone to a “win and you’re in” policy for Chase eligibility.
That not only gives him and his team peace of mind, it also allows them the chance to experiment with their car in search of more speed. And that experimentation is particularly important now that NASCAR has made numerous rules changes to the Sprint Cup cars.
“It’s nice because there are so many unknowns,” Logano said. “We don’t really know what’s going to happen, if our car is going be fast or not.
“We assume we’re going to be OK, but you never know, but knowing that we’re in the Chase kind of makes us feel a little bit better because it gives us some time to really make sure we get this thing figured out.”
With points no longer an issue, thanks to his Daytona victory, Logano said he expects to race for the win a lot more this season.
“We can be aggressive now and race like we did last year up until the Chase starts, so that’s a nice feeling,” he said.
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