{"id":21864,"date":"2025-07-19T16:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T16:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/21864\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T16:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T16:43:08","slug":"tracing-joey-loganos-journey-from-sliced-bread-proclamation-to-cementing-place-as-a-nascar-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/21864\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracing Joey Logano’s Journey, from Sliced Bread Proclamation to Cementing Place As a NASCAR Great"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City in December 2005, an awards dinner honoring that season\u2019s NASCAR Busch, Truck, and regional series champions. Seated almost anonymously at one of the tables was 15-year-old Joey Logano and his parents, who were all guests of NASCAR.<\/p>\n

Logano\u2019s presence wasn\u2019t a total surprise, as having started racing at the age of six, he had gone on to become a teen sensation in his native Northeast.<\/p>\n

Just a few months before that \u201905 awards dinner, future NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin called Logano \u2018the real deal\u2019 and boldly predicted<\/a>, \u201cI am absolutely, 100-percent positive, without a doubt that he can be one of the greatest that ever raced in NASCAR. I\u2019m positive. There\u2019s no doubt in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he sat at the table, the well-mannered Logano had a wide-eyed look on his face, taking it all in, shyly smiling at times, and listening attentively to all the stories the assembled drivers told. It was almost as if Logano was saying to himself, \u201cGosh, how did I get here? Will I ever be in their shoes and be a big champion like them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Boy, would that change in a hurry. Making his NASCAR Cup debut less than three years later, Logano would go on to become one of NASCAR\u2019s great drivers. Ten years after his NASCAR debut, he would become a Cup Series champion for the first time in 2018.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d follow that up with another Cup title in 2022 and completed the hat trick with a third crown last season.<\/p>\n

Logano Is Set To Achieve One of NASCAR\u2019s Greatest Milestones<\/p>\n

Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway, Logano\u2014still in the prime of his racing career at only 35 years old\u2014will make the 600th start of his Cup career<\/a>.\u00a0 In so doing, he will become the youngest driver in Cup history to reach that milestone, surpassing the sport\u2019s greatest driver, Richard Petty.<\/p>\n

Petty, with the justified nickname of \u2018The King,\u2019 made the 600th start of his 1,184-start career in 1973 at the age of 35 years, 7 months, and 23 days.<\/p>\n

Fifty two years later, Logano, who came into NASCAR with his colorful nickname of \u2018sliced bread\u2019\u2014as in the greatest thing since sliced bread (courtesy of former Busch Series champion Randy LaJoie, father of Corey LaJoie)\u2014has beaten Petty to 600 starts by nearly half a year, doing so in just 35 years, 1 month and 26 days.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Logano earned \u2018youngest\u2019 honors in NASCAR. He was the youngest Xfinity Series race winner at 18 years, 21 days, and then just over a year later, became the youngest NASCAR Cup Series race winner at 19 years, 35 days.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, even though he\u2019s 11th in the Cup standings heading into Sunday\u2019s race\u2014and considering its unique playoff system that theoretically allows a driver to go from the 16th seed to win the championship 10 weeks later\u2014don\u2019t count Logano out for possibly earning a fourth title this season.<\/p>\n

To date, Logano has 37 wins in his Cup career. He\u2019s won at least one race in 14 of his first 16 seasons (and it will be 15 of 17 once this season is over, as he\u2019s already won one race thus far in 2025).<\/p>\n

Can Logano Make 198 More Consecutive Starts?<\/p>\n

Another key to Logano\u2019s success is his durability. Starting with his first full-time Cup season in 2009 and through Sunday\u2019s race at Dover, Logano will have made 597 consecutive starts.<\/p>\n

NASCAR Hall of Famer and four-time Cup champ Jeff Gordon<\/a>, now the No. 2 in command at Hendrick Motorsports, holds the record as NASCAR\u2019s Iron Man with 797 consecutive starts, having passed the previous Iron Man, Ricky Rudd, who made 788 consecutive starts in his own Hall of Fame career.<\/p>\n

If Logano can remain healthy and uninjured, he has a legitimate chance of someday passing Gordon to become the new Iron Man of NASCAR.<\/p>\n

While 600 starts (597 consecutive) is a great achievement, if NASCAR continues to have 36-race seasons like it has had for the last 25 years (since 2001), Logano could theoretically pass Gordon\u2019s Iron Man mark in the third race of the 2031 season. And \u2018Sliced Bread\u2019 will still be relatively young at 40 years old (he won\u2019t turn 41 until May 24 that year).<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say, hypothetically, that Logano were to race for another 10 seasons and retire at 45 years old. If he can somehow maintain his career average of two-plus wins per season going forward, the Connecticut native potentially stands to retire with close to 60 wins in his definite NASCAR Hall of Fame career.<\/p>\n

Logano Has Only Raced For Two Cup Team Owners\u2014Two of the Best<\/p>\n

Oh, and one more thing to note: Logano has raced for just two team owners in his Cup career\u2014and two of the greatest owners at that\u2014Joe Gibbs and Roger Penske.<\/p>\n

Gibbs didn\u2019t renew Logano\u2019s contract after the 2012 season, partly due to a tenure that resulted in just two Cup wins for Logano with JGR. But since signing with Penske in 2013, Logano has gone on to win 35 Cup races, as well as the afore-mentioned three Cup championships.<\/p>\n

Somehow, some way, even though he may never admit it publicly, it would not be surprising if in Gibbs\u2019 most private moments, he smacks himself upside the head and laments, \u201cWhat were you thinking when you let that Sliced Bread kid go?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City in December 2005, an awards dinner honoring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-21864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}