Young NASCAR driver Logano gaining wins, confidence

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By Greg Billing, Staff Writer Updated 9:52 PM Sunday, June 14, 2009

Joey Logano is getting this NASCAR Nationwide Series thing down pretty well with three wins in 32 career starts, including the Meijer 300 at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday, June 13.

Now the goal for the 19-year-old phenom is translating NNS success up to the Sprint Cup level.

“Confidence picked up a lot with me,” said Logano, who became the first repeat winner at Kentucky Speedway in the NNS when he blew past Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch to lead the final nine laps of the 200-lap event. “That carries over to the team. It gets the team pumped up. Me and Zippy (crew chief Greg Zipadelli) are working a lot better now with the race car.”

Entering Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Michigan, Logano had logged three top 10 finishes — all ninth place and all career highs — in his last six races. He finished 25th on Sunday.

“Probably the biggest difference right now is the confidence,” Dave Rogers, Logano’s NNS crew chief, said of the difference in his driver from the 2008 win at Kentucky to this one. “He’s got a little more stride in his step. He knows exactly what he wants out of these cars after a year.”

Go, team, go

Logano’s nickname is ‘Sliced Bread.’ On Saturday, Busch was toast.

Busch — who led a race-high 162 laps — had no chance to hold off Logano, who ducked inside Busch and roared by his teammate once he found clean air in turn 4.

After the race Busch immediately pulled into the garage, did a quick television interview, was excused from his post-race media session and left for Michigan.

“It always happens that way,” Busch said. “We always lose in the end. Joey is better than (the field) at these places. ... We didn’t have a good enough race car today.”

Logano won from the pole for the second straight year. Busch — who was denied his fifth NNS win this season — also started on the front row.

Hot laps

Brad Keselowski finished third — the same place he started — and brother Brian moved up from 41st to finish 35th. They live in Rochester Hills, Mich., but their mom, Kay, grew up near New Carlisle.

Big crowd

The estimated attendance was 70,000. The official grandstand seating capacity is listed as 66,089, but the far corners of the stands stretching into turn 1 and turn 4 had empty seats.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2400, ext. 6991, or gbilling@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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