Scratch that. He better be great.
A longtime developmental driver for Joe Gibbs Racing, the team had been counting down the days until Logano turned 18 last week. That made the phenom eligible to compete at NASCAR's national level and JGR wasted no time putting their prized prospect in a car.
Logano makes his debut Saturday in the Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway, and his boss clearly expects big things -- now.
"The last time I called him ... I said, 'Hey, no pressure -- we'll take a first or second every time,' " Joe Gibbs quipped.
He was only partly joking.
Gibbs has likely invested several million dollars in Logano in the three years he's been in JGR's developmental system. The team won the race to sign him after veteran Mark Martin raved about the then 15-year-old "real deal" who was cleaning up in everything from legends to late models.
"I am high on Joey Logano because I am absolutely, 100 percent positive, without a doubt that he can be one of the greatest that ever raced in NASCAR," Martin said in 2005. "I'm positive. There's no doubt in my mind."
Since that ringing endorsement, Logano has won races at every level.
He won the 2007 Grand National title with five wins in 13 starts and won in his only NASCAR West Series start. Last October, Logano led 87 laps at Irwindale Speedway to beat many of NASCAR's top developmental drivers in the Toyota All-Star Showdown.
Then 20 days before his birthday, Logano entered his first ARCA event, winning at North Carolina Speedway and cementing Martin's assessment of him.
"Joey is magic, take my word for it," Martin simply stated last week. "You will see soon."
So it was no surprise to see the Gibbs organization celebrate his birthday Saturday by rolling out a massive 150-pound cake modeled on the car Logano will drive this weekend at Dover. Team officials have shown unbridled enthusiasm about Logano, leading many in the industry to jokingly refer to the kid as "Sliced Bread."
"It was special for us to take Joey out there and kind of work with our East-West guys for a while, do some Pro Cup racing and then when our Cup guys really had some time with him, they were bragging on him and said he was ready now -- and that was last year," team president J.D. Gibbs said.
"That kind of goes back to what Mark Martin told me several years ago when he was still 15, that he could go out there right now and drive these cars. I thought he was crazy at the time, but Mark has good wisdom because he really wasn't that far off."
So exactly how did a kid from Middletown, Conn., become the next big thing?
Truth be told, it wasn't via a conventional path. His father, Tom, owned a garbage business in Connecticut and when Joey turned 4, he bought him a go-kart that his son drove day and night as he shunned the traditional stick-and-ball sports.
A mechanic at Tom Logano's company had a son racing quarter-midgets, creating the idea that Joey should try it. But his racing career didn't take off until the family relocated to Georgia -- not for Joey's racing, but so their daughter, Danielle, could further her figure skating career.
Once in the South, Joey was free from Connecticut's age restrictions and was soon competing in Bandaleros and Legends cars. Three years later, at the age of 12, Joey won the Southeast-based Pro Legends national championship.
His parents knew then they had something special, and nurturing Joey's career became the most important thing. He's sacrificed a ton of his childhood to get to this point, but Logano wouldn't change a thing.
"What would you rather do, go to college or drive race cars? For me, I'd rather drive race cars," he said. "Sometimes you gotta give up something to gain something, and right now this is what I'd love to do the rest of my life. But I still think I'm just your average Joe and a typical teenager despite all this stuff.
"I'm a racer. I wouldn't do anything different, ever, in my life. I wouldn't trade this for anything. All my friends are the same way. Racing is their life and that's the same way for me."
He gets his first shot at the big show in proven equipment at Dover, where he'll drive the No. 20 Toyota that leads the Nationwide Series in owner points and has won six races in 13 starts this season with Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart behind the wheel.
The one constant on the car has been crew chief Dave Rogers, who wants to temper the expectations for Logano and from Logano.
"I don't want Joey going to Dover expecting to win," Rogers said. "We're confident that Joey is going to turn a lot of heads this year, even more so than he has in the past. It might take one race, it might take a month, it might take six months, but we feel our equipment is capable now, and we think Joey is capable of winning right now.
"But, so much of this sport is chemistry and getting the communication where it needs to be. That's going to be the variable we will need to work on the most."
And when it all clicks, Logano could be fast-tracked to the Sprint Cup Series.
J.D. Gibbs said the team won't push him, and it had long been assumed Logano was earmarked for eventual expansion into a four-car team. But with two-time champion Tony Stewart testing the free agent market, there's a possibility the team may have a hole in its roster that Logano could fill. Scheduled to run about 18 Nationwide races this year, Logano may get the chance to move up to the next level sooner rather than later.
"I think what's more important for us is that we don't make a decision unless all of our key guys from inside say that we're ready to go," J.D. Gibbs said. "That's the same when it came to hiring Tony Stewart, the same when we hired Denny Hamlin and starting a third and second team. I think everyone is on board at this point and this is where we need to be and we will kind of wait and watch and when that group gets together and says, 'Let's go,' then we'll go as a team."
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