The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
JEFF JACOBS
Logano ready to experience winning feeling again
Joey Logano has been there before. He has climbed out of his No. 22 Ford, celebrated on Victory Lane, started an interview with Fox, stopped in his own joyful disbelief and shouted. “Daytona 500! Oh, my God!” That was Feb. 22, 2015. For a kid out of Middletown, still pushing the arc of his racing dreams, that seems like yesterday. For a 27-year-old man who struggled to find answers in a difficult 2017 NASCAR season, hungry for renewal Sunday at Daytona, that can seem like a lifetime ago.
“There is nothing like the Daytona 500,” Logano said. “It’s the biggest racing stage for stock cars. It’s The Great American Race. You come down here and you think about the greats who have won it before and you want to put your name on that list.
“The feeling you have when you’re able to do that and pull into Victory Lane and see your team and your family and everyone there. There is no better feeling than that. There is no other race that can give you the opportunity to have that feeling.”
Logano first caught eyes in Connecticut in 1997 when he won an Eastern Grand National quarter-midget race. He was 7, a wunderkind. Maybe it’s the name. Joey never became Joe. Maybe it’s the tendency when you watch someone from down the street grow into one of a sport’s elite performers. You can forget the calendar keeps turning on all of us.
The calendar has flipped to 2018 and a new year already has brought remarkable joy to Joey and Brittany Logano. His name is Hudson Joseph, born in January. And in one of the coolest blackand-white Twitter photos, here was dad holding his infant son in an old-school Hudson pickup truck.
“That’s a game-changer, for
sure,” Logano said. “Your schedule completely changes from what you were used to doing and what you do now. I’m sure everyone who has kids understands that completely.
“It has been an amazing experience. It changes your life. It’s so cool to hold him and think about the possibilities and opportunities ahead of him. What we can do to help him along the way. There’s nothing like it. It’s bigger than winning the Daytona 500.”
In case you’re wondering if Logano has kept a perspective, the previous paragrah should serve as your answer.
Logano grew up playing hockey. His sister Danielle was a competitive figure skater. The family moved south. His parents own Extreme Ice Center in the Charlotte area, where Danielle is an instructor. Joey can drive a Zamboni. Of course, he can. And it was at the rink he met Brittany Baca, who worked at the concession stand. They would marry in December 2014. Logano won Daytona two months later. Life was on a roll.
In an interview last summer with Krista Voda of NBC’s NASCAR America, Brittany explained how she was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, a hormonal disorder that can lead to infertility. The couple tried in vitro fertilization. An embryo transfer was set, Logano told Voda, but there were polyps that had to be removed. It was not going to happen that time. Brittany told Voda how at that moment it felt like the end of the world.
Logano and his wife co-founded the Joey Logano Foundation, one that focuses on helping kids in crisis from infancy to age 24. To date, the fondation has given away $2.4 million in grants. The fifth annual Driving Hope Home Dinner and Karting Event will be July 18-19 at Foxwoods. The event already has raised more than $650,000 since 2014.
“The go-kart is a blast,” Logano said. “But this is about giving kids in crisis a chance in life. You meet these kids you see the road they could take and it’s not good. For me to have the platform I have and do
nothing but run races would be a waste, terribly unselfish of me.”
Brittany and Joey were going to adopt if they could not have a child. There are so many kids without homes, she told Voda. Ultimately, IVF was a success.
“If I had one regret,” Brittany told Voda, “I wish I would have shared it when I was in the pit. I want to let people know they’re not alone. One awesome things about pain and struggle is it’s an equalizer. Everybody goes through it.”
“Brittany is the toughest woman I know,” Logano said a phone interview Wednesday. “She went through a lot. With the IVF, before we were able to have Hudson, the emotions and things she went though.
“It’s something she and I talk a bunch about to other people in the moment. We learned a lot about each other through those times. Definitely, it made our relationship stronger. I’m not saying it was easy the whole time. We stayed committed to making it happen.”
Logan let out a laugh. “Now we got a little man and we’re so happy.”
The family, parents, Brittany, et al., have arrived in Daytona. Will Hudson make it over to the track?
“He doesn’t like to sleep much right now,” Logano said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
In 2015, Logano became the second youngest driver to win the Daytona 500. In all, he won 14 times from 2014 to 2016, tied for most on the Monster Energy Cup Series. So what happened last year was a shock to his system. He ended 17th in the points standings, out of the playoffs, his worst finish since 2012.
“It never fun when you have a tough season like we did last year,” Logano said. “You learn the most when you’re in the trenches like that. I think it will make us a stronger team. We learned a lot about ourselves and thinking more outside the box to gain some speed and improve to where we need to be.
“I also think the second in the Clash was a nice little confidence booster heading into the weekend.”
Logano took second in that Advance Auto Parts Clash exhibition race at Daytona behind Brad Keselowski last Sunday, and
afterward his Penske teammate said, “Joey is one of those guys I feel like you could kick in the [privates], and he’d walk away smiling. He’s a pretty happy guy.”
That’s a stretch, but, yes, Joey Logano is a pretty happy guy.